Writing Angst

[przed]

So, yesterday I go to give the final polish to a new scene in a story I've been working on. The scene's nearly done, but I want to make sure the last few paragraphs are just right.

I open the file. And the new scene's not there.

The version of the file is the old one. The pre-new-scene one. Every version I have on back up is minus the new scene. The new scene is gone, vanished, disappeared. Apparently when I was cleaning up my hard drive last week, and in particular updating all the files for the story cycle of which this story is a part, I must have deleted the wrong, freakin' file. To say that I am distraught would be understating the case.

I have to write the damn thing over again.

Fortunately, I have the opening of the scene in my notebook. Unfortunately, I spent a day adding to and improving upon the scene once I transcribed it to the computer. I discovered things about the scene in the writing that I remember in broad sweeping strokes, but I can't for the life of me remember the exact phrasing and it's killing me.

Oh, well. I didn't lose the whole story. And I didn't lose the whole cycle. But I now know a wee bit of the craziness that T.E. Lawrence must have gone through when he lost the entire first draft of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in a railway car.

Comments

[sooguy.livejournal.com]

Wow, that really bites. I don't even take half the precautions you and your friends mention. I think I will start. The worse that's happened to me is losing a scene on paper that I felt was perfect and held me up until I found it again several weeks later. Oddly enough after rediscovering it I realized wasn't that great of a scene and I could have rewritten it from memory without losing too much detail.

Okay I think I am going to go and back up some things I am working on.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Do back ups! Do back ups now!