I have two manuscripts that are in the pre-submission stage. One is far along in the process—in the hands of my agent and going to Midnight Ink in ASAP, and the the other is in the first draft stage (going to Penguin before my April 1 deadline.)
I took a two week break on my next Myrtle Clover to work on my next Memphis BBQ book–I have a hard time working on two manuscripts at once.
When I came back to my Myrtle Clover book about a week ago? I couldn’t find the revised file. I’d rewritten the first three chapters completely…where were they?
I spent three hours looking for the corrected file. I looked on my desktop. I looked in My Documents. I even looked in my Downloads folder. Nothing.
I checked the files I’d emailed to myself. I checked my thumbdrives. Nothing.
The computer had eaten my file. But it was my screw-up.
My mistake (besides neglecting the backup that I nearly always make)? I should have just immediately started the rewrite again.
Every time I rewrite chapters from scratch they end up better than they started out.
It’s tedious. It’s annoying. It makes me grind my teeth.
But the text is better.
Finally I accepted that the chapters were gone. I sat down and tried remembering where I’d gone with them the first time. Then I started writing.
Have you messed up? Lost a file? Accidentally deleted one?
Try to calm down. This is a big one. I was in orbit for at least an hour.
Stop the recriminations. Really, does it matter now if your puppy ate your outline? (Yes, this happened to me several years ago when I made an outline. It was one of many factors that made me decide against outlining. You can even lose hard copies of things–not just the electronic version.) It’s definitely quicker to accept the text is gone, not be too hard on yourself, and start working on that section of the manuscript again.
Piece together your thought process from the last time you worked on the project. Where were you going with the plot and characters? If you were revising, then were you cutting text, adding text, or rewording?
Build on the foundation of what you’ve already got. There’s usually still something there…on paper, on an email you sent someone, in some random Word folder. It might be an early draft or only brainstormed ideas. Take what you’ve got and then add to it.
Help ensure it doesn’t happen again. If your mess-up involves backing up, then you’re in luck—there are a multitude of methods of backup these days. Thumb drives/USB drives are incredibly cheap now and, to me, easier to use than CDs. My all-time, lazy method of backing up is emailing the document to my Gmail account. It’s accessible on any computer and it’s there. Too bad I didn’t back up those first few chapters. There are also external hard drives you can buy, online storage, etc. My husband now has me hooked up with a USB and a program (SyncToy) that automatically saves to the USB as many times a day as you set it up to save. Even if I don’t think about it, the computer application will.
Have you lost data? What’s your backup method?
I did some blog housekeeping yesterday. Do you read Mystery Writing is Murder? Are you listed in the blogroll in my sidebar? Also, I’m opening up Fridays (soon) for guest posts on ‘writing process.’ In addition, the blog is available for promo spots for authors with upcoming and new releases. For more information, please check the post: http://tinyurl.com/ybm3s58
You have to back up, but then you know that and I had to say that as an IT person. Sorry.
But, it’s easy to get busy and forget to back up. I have found we usually only lose our work once and our memory gets better.
I’m glad you type fast. What a bummer.
Elizabeth – I know exactly what you mean about having to start something all over again. I’ve had to do that, too. As you say, it’s teeth-gnashing, but it’s really worth it when you see the final product. I’ve found, too, that the “second time around” is better.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that – nothing worse than that sickening feeling that you’ve lost a file.
I’m absolutely paranoid about backing up and do multiple back ups – two USB drives, and I e-mail important documents to myself to a webmail account. And occasionally, I’ll even print something out. I’ve looked at several remote back up options, but haven’t gone that route yet.
I tend to send the files to a couple of emails every few days, but I sometimes forget. And, of course, that’s usually when the computer eats my files. Your advice is spot on!
I have learned that if I don’t save and backup things every time something will happen. At work, I’ve also learned that I have to make a copy of everything I handle otherwise, you guessed it, something will happen and I don’t have a copy of the original.
I’m just in awe that you only spent an hour being upset. This is such a gift to those of us, like me, who get caught up in the emotions of the moment and take too long to shift into action mode. Glad you came out of this mistake all the better for it.
Karen
Oh my word, how awful! I can imagine the divebomb your stomach took upon that discovery. I’ve had this happen to me. In fact, I’ve lost an entire manuscript–twice. But unlike you, I just gave them up. Good for you for rewriting! Hopefully we’ve both learned to be more careful with our work. I now try to backup my work, but often, I forget to do it, and end up backing up onto a udisk maybe only every few days. Some lessons are hard-won I guess.
I had some stuff trapped in an ancient hard drive for a few years – yes, believe it. I just proceeded with the story on my new computer, and once I got the MS recovered for me, it threw me for awhile to fill-in-the-blanks to connect the two sections. I had to rewrite certain scenes as if from scratch, as you’ve described, because where I’d taken the story in its later version was better than the way it had begun.
I’ve lost other things but not anything writing related. For which I’m very thankful.
Writing two manuscripts at once isn’t a natural thing for me either, although I have worked on two different ones at once. It’s not easy.
You have my sympathy–there are few things worse than the feeling you get right when you realize you’ve lost a significant chunk of work. Argghh!
I think everyone who has ever worked on a computer knows that feeling.
I think I’m going to go back up a bunch of stuff now.
Since I discovered Dropbox, I tend to back up writing to that folder. But I also have an external hard drive and countless flash drives.
But I totally agree that sometimes it’s smarter to start fresh. I was reading the final scenes of my manuscript and decided the flow was off between two paragraphs; I remembered cutting because at the time, it seemed I’d spent too much time dwelling on something that wasn’t really advancing the plot.
Apparently that day, I’d cut those paragraphs before I saved the work for the day — it was just one of those, “no, don’t like that … cut” deals. Of course, a month later, all I remember is that I did write something. After searching through my daily updates for far too long, I realized I could have written the two sentence transition, and it would be better because I had the lead in and follow up already on the page.
It wasn’t like I had masses of plot in there!
Oh can I add one more thing? An external hard drive for around 50 bucks is a great way to back up your files. Then you have your computer hard drive, your jump drives and a more permanent storage (if there is such a thing)-the external drive.
I haven’t lost anything yet. Knock wood. I back up on a usb and to my email but am considering an external hard-drive. And you’re right, when something happens that you can’t undo, the sooner you put your energy into moving forward, the better.
I hope your new chapters are better than the one’s you lost. And from what you said, they probably will be. Still, it’s a bummer to lose writing.
I lost my entire novel way back when. I started it on a typewriter and switched to a computer when my SIL started taking computer classes. What did I know about backing up? I finished the whole thing and then her machine crashed. A couple of years later I started again with the original typewritten sheets and saw just how awful they were. I rewrote the whole thing, and that’s what got published. Nowadays I have my working copy on a memory stick, so I can work on any computer, with a backup on my home system.
I can imagine the horror. Followed quickly by reams of self-recrimination. Kudos to you for moving on (but really, you didn’t have a choice, did you?)
I email my ms to myself every 5,000 words or so. It gives me a bit of peace of mind.
Elspeth
Have you ever wanted to find an object, then headed to where you know it is, get there and can’t remember what you were looking for, making you go back and start over to see if you can catch the beginning thought? lol
Agh! I know where you were–exactly! I write on hard copy, so I can generally find what I typed from (though I’ve occasionally turned over every recycling bin in the house–ouch) but the WORST for me is the drafts… a draft I’ve made a bunch of changes on, but it takes such a careful read to tell one from another–so I’ve lost a few ‘lastest drafts’–a couple times when I hadn’t saved very often while making changes, a couple when I just can’t find the darn thing.
I back up to memory stick, and have taken to emailing myself, but not so often that I avoid redoing work now and again.
Glad you feel like rewritten chapters come out better for you!
I really like the idea of SyncToy. I’m going to check it out. I seem to be plagued with hard drive crashes. I’ve had three in the last three or four years. Everything lost. I do have a back-up USB, but I also tend to forget to back up. I would like something that did it automatically.
Helen
Straight From Hel
Oh, when I read of your plight, my stomach sank to the floor. I’ve lost paragraphs I’ve just written but never whole chapters.
I even save my manuscript by emailing a copy to myself.
Well, it is good news that the re-write is better than the original and if you kept good notes…
Also, I have an award for you.
ann
I’ve lost pages, but never full chapters. I save often, back up, and print out – guess I’m uber paranoid.
Sorry you had to redo them!
My hard drive died on my laptop, the only computer I have! Fortunately I know a computer guru who was able to salvage most of the old and transfer it to a new one.
But what a scare!
Now, at the end of the day, I also save to a flash drive that I carry around on a key chain.
Oh, and I just wanted to let you know, my husband got me an amazon gift certificate, you book is in my cart!
ann
I haven’t lost anything yet… I try and remember to backup every time I finish a chapter or revision.
Daily backups between laptop and desktop (except on weekends) are my thing. But I need to get better at getting off-computer copies made. Online storage, perhaps? Google Docs? I’m still getting the hang of this whole writing thing, so it’s strange to feel how precious the words can be. *mental note to back up more*
I HAVE lost TONS of stuff – half-written manuscripts, archived posts that I stored for their worthiness, excel spreadhseets with important data – because of hard drive crash . AAAARGH! It hurst just remembering that!!
So now i have flash drives and periodically store everything of importance on them – just in case.
Marvin D Wilson
Oh that just sucks!
As usual, Elizabeth, you’ve given us good rules or procedures to help our writing…or in the case, overcome a writing disaster.
My backup method? SugarSync online. Easy and free. Plus, it’s out of the house so, can’t be lost, stolen, flooded, or burned down.
Best Wishes Galen.
Imagineering Fiction Blog
Great advice–especially the not to panic part. That’s always my first reaction. Once I deleted a big chunk of something I didn’t mean to then saved over the old file rather than doing a new save. Argh! To prevent that from happening again, I obsessively do new saves every time I work on my book. By the time I’ve finished the first draft, I’m usually around save #100. They don’t take up a how lot of drive space, so I keep them just in case.
I got scared just reading this. It’s a big fear of mine, which is why I save everything online and on my computer. Religiously!
Teresa–You’re right about that! My husband has always been on me about backing up and he is RIGHT! :) The fast typing did really help…you’re right about that.
Margot–It really is worth it when you just do the rewrite. It’s *always* better. I have no idea why. I guess the old version is somewhere in our subconscious and we’re improving on it without really thinking?
Ingrid–Now you’re someone who will NEVER have something like that happen! Good for you–you’re being really, really careful. We should all be like you.
Jemi–Naturally! Computers are wicked and they’re on the lookout for the worst possible time to eat our manuscript.
Author Guy–Now that’s the most positive thing I’ve heard come out of a non-backup disaster! You came out with better copy and the good stuff is what got published. Perfect!
Mason–It’s Murphy’s Law, isn’t it? Everything runs swimmingly if I back up. If I don’t? The computer goes wild.
Hart-I think I wouldn’t have freaked out nearly as much if it had been a first draft. But a revision? Ack! And, like you, I have about a million different versions of the manuscript. Now I’ve got them all in the same folder and I’m saving them by date, not WIP name. Because what was the point of looking through a million docs for the right one? And I couldn’t remember the exact date that I’d last worked on it. A mess!
Helen–Automatic was key for me. And my husband thought it might be best to take my memory out of the equation. :)
Ann–It was awful. I’m still hoping I can find it…just to see how my rewrite measures up!
Thanks so much for my award and for buying “Pretty!” I hope you enjoy it. Myrtle Clover, my protagonist, is…unusual.
Diane–I think I need to do more printing, too. Can’t lose a sheaf of paper THAT big!
Carolyn–Now THAT is smart.
Karen–You’re so sweet! I think it was more pragmatism for me than anything, though–I really, really couldn’t afford to waste more time either in searching for the document, or in being mad at myself.
Simon–And they ARE precious…when you measure them with time lost, especially. Time is such a precious commodity these days.
Marvin–And you even lost your blog–courtesy of Blogger. I remember the day when that happened…I felt so bad for you! But now your WordPress site seems to work out well, so maybe it was all for the best.
Alex–You are so right!
Carolina–I still forget. :) Fortunately, though, my techie hubby has me set up with something that won’t forget. And now I’ve got suggestions in the comments for all kinds of good ideas of things to check out. Maybe I can be triple protected!
Julia–Oh, I can only imagine! That would be REALLY hard…linking together an old storyline to a new one. I might be tempted to rewrite it after giving it a quick read-through to remember what I needed to accomplish during the section. What a pain, though!
Carol–It’s hard to change gears, isn’t it? And then I’ll get ideas for the 2 different books and I feel torn between them…ick. No, I really can’t work on both at once. I’ve done it before when I was just doing line revisions on one, but doing creative work on both doesn’t seem to work for me.
Alan–It’s a sick feeling, isn’t it? And my memory stinks, so I have a hard time remembering where I was going with something. Oh well. I guess it was all for the best. Took a whole day of looking, then a couple of days of writing (more writing than I usually do), but it looks pretty good now.
Terry–I still need to look into Dropbox, too. So much to do, so little time! I’m with you on the rewrite thing…sometimes it’s just better to go in that direction.
Teresa–We have an external hard drive, so I’ll second that motion. We put our digital music and photos on there and–when I remember, I put my ms on there. My probably is my horrid memory!
Paul–It’s hard to leave the mistake behind, but you feel so much better just moving on and doing the rewrite. No use crying over spilled milk…although I felt like it! I think the chapters were better, yes. But it sure ate up time that would have been better spent working on the next Memphis book.
Galen–Okay, I need to look up SugarSync. Sounds like a winner! I do have synced backup, but it’s here in the house unless I email it or send it up to the server (which is a major pain.)
Elspeth–You might want to back it up even more frequently than that! I’m a believer now. I really had no choice but to do the rewrite quickly–I was right on the revision deadline.
Judy–I have! And then I do something which is even nuttier: I look for the lost thing in the SAME place, over and over as if I expect different results! Crazy. I must think one of the “Borrowers” took my item and then I’m hoping they returned it?!
Marisa–It really scares you, doesn’t it? What a relief to get it back! And now you’re completely reformed. :)
Gin–Thanks for coming by! And you’re right–BE SCARED! Be very scared…and back up!
I knew a PhD student who managed to leave the only copy of his typed thesis in a phone booth (in the days when things were still typed). And yes it had disappeared when he rushed back ten minutes later. So after much grieving it was back to all those scraps of notes for another few months of typing … My whole MA thesis got snaffled by a virus and so did all the backups. Thankfully a smart guy in the IT dept managed to salvage most of it but without the formatting. That was a scary moment, so heaven knows what the PhD guy felt.
Rob–Now *that* gives me chills. Those theses have to be presented in person to the faculty, right? Oh, that’s awful. Hopefully his memory was better than mine–I couldn’t really remember what I’d done with the chapters except change the timing of the murder, delete a scene, stuff like that…
Thanks for turning your upset into good lessons for us. I too will look into synchToy.
I back up to a portable hard drive, but read that I shouldn’t keep it attached in case of a BAD surge. So I often miss the automatic backup!
My problem currently is losing the card given to me by an agent at a conference. I know, I know, how could I? His online email is a general one. But I’m still looking.
I nearly hyperventilated just reading about what happened to you! It is a terrible thing to experience. I always backup and email files to myself as well. I salute you for digging in and for the positive outlook that the work will be better the second time around. Good luck!
Great, great points. A long time ago I was given the sole copy of a book and my computer ate it. It was the whole thing on a floppy disk. I felt miserable, my friend felt horrible, and like you said…they started again and think they have created a better version of the story. We all learned our lessons on how we should handle those situations.
Kathy–Oh no! Do you remember his name? You could plug it into AgentQuery and see if he comes up. Good luck!
Saxon Henry–Thanks! The rewrites are really always better. I think our brains just automatically build on what was there before.
Carpenter–Even worse! Now *that’s* a nightmare…someone *else’s* book. I bet you did feel awful. But the great thing is that they came up with a better book in their rewrites. And they probably learned you should never have one copy of your book!
Lorel–Well, and that’s the nice thing about text files. They *don’t* really take up any space. Even 100 files! :)
Oh, this is funny. Your puppy ate your outline, and you decided not to make more outlines.
I would probably decide not to have another puppy :D
I am reasonably good at taking back-up of important stuff, but occasionally I forget which version is the new one.