How spectacularly the wheels came off…

So… last night sucked.

Well, last night and this morning, since I spent four hours trying to recover my lost manuscripts.

Yes. Lost.

They can’t be active undeleted. That can’t be system restored. They can’t be called up out of the hundreds of back-ups made, because according to the writing program I used, they never existed.

So I can’t open my Doorways rough rewrite, but I have a copy of it to Word, if I decline all edits I made.

Half of the original opening for Don’t Look Back is missing, but at least I hand-wrote it over to my notebook for NaNoWriMo.

Guardian seems to open and refuse at random, but I’ve managed to copy/paste it to Word.

No. My problem lies with Eden’s Son I.E. WiP2. The entire rewrite is gone. Poof. Up into the ether. All of the back-ups only read up to before I started it. There are no Word versions because I didn’t send it to anyone to read. I didn’t copy/paste because a) it’s freaking tedious and b) it’s safe as long as I back up? Right?

Turns out no. Turns out backing up manually to create an extra copy obliterated months worth of work in less than a second.

So lesson number 1: NEVER use freeware. It’s worth as much as you paid for it.
Number 2: NEVER assume that programmers think further than the tips of their noses. They don’t. So that thing that seems obvious to do because it’s what is supposed to happen? Don’t do it before going to help and making doubly sure that that isn’t the one that in his own words “DO NOT DO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.”

But now I have to wonder: If I risk losing my work if I don’t back-up and if I do? What action should I take? Print every page every freaking time? Because apparently it means bullshit to people that you spent most of a year on the work you lost, because apparently: “It can’t vanish.” is a satisfactory reply.

But like I said. I spent four hours last night looking for the data. My mother spent two this morning. It isn’t there.

I am starting to accept this. Slowly, but it’s hard, because now I know that my end of January goal for WiP2 is screwed. In fact, I downloaded the trial for Scrivener last night with the plan to buy the program in a month, but you know what? I don’t want to write. I don’t want to even look at my rough draft. Because all that I can see is the end of the document that’s supposed to be followed by 26 chapters or thirty five thousand hard-fought words.

And then I want to kill something.

But on the flip-side, I’ve never thought I could lose over a hundred thousand words of everything and survive, but here I am.

So… what’s your record loss? Got any horror stories to share? How did you recover?
Any Scrivener users out there? Is the program any good?
Any other drafting programs that I can look at?

Er… thanks for your opinion, but…

Sometimes, I wonder if I’m a different breed of human. Maybe I am. After all, I write.

Maybe, the distinction that I write is why I seem to have problems with communicating with people about writing.

Odds are that all of us writers have met the group I’m thinking about.

I’m not talking about the “Oh! When will you be published?” or “So one day you will be famous!” gangs. No. I’m talking about the: “Oh what is so difficult about it?” and the “I could write a book with my eyes closed” gang.

To become even more specific, there is a faction in those two gangs that makes my blood boil. The “You’re going about this all wrong!!!!” crew.

I mean… seriously, if they were so wise and wonderful and knew everything there is to know about how to optimally work towards publishing, why in the name of all that is holy, AREN’T THEY PUBLISHED?

Yes, they can’t write with music (or at all, as is attested by the fact that their idea of a completed work is a text message) or they think that my preferred music is an absolute creativity killer. Or they think I should have a ten foot tall Easter Bunny whispering plot ideas into my head.

I couldn’t give a monkey’s arse. Because guess what. They’re not QUALIFIED to even give me a tip.

Let alone CRITICIZE MY METHODS!

How arrogant must you be to insinuate that my writing things in a certain way is stupid and bound to fail? After all, I have finished a first draft. They haven’t even attempted to write an essay. 

I might as well go to Hussein Bolt and tell him he’s running wrong.

And you know the worst of it?

I NEVER ASKED THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

#Happyplace
#Happyplace
#Happyplace

Generally, I smile blandly and imagine creating a character in my head that will die violently. How do you deal with these uhm… professional advisers?

Irony.

Before I start today’s post:

Morning all and welcome to all the new followers. And thank you all for posting comments. It’s really starting to feel like we’re in conversation.

I wanted to do this a while back, but I was in such a hurry every time I posted that I kept forgetting. Anyway. I have been contacted by C. John Coombes, who wants to get his new blog off the ground. He needs authors that published in an e-book format as well as reviewers willing to read and review e-books. So please go check it out and spread the word.

Then, as I’m certain you noticed, my first page is up, but as yet incomplete. The plan is to give you all at least some idea about who’s talking to me in Doorways so that I don’t sound like a ranting idiot half the time. However, I’m struggling to find images to use in order to give you an idea what they look like. Sigh.

Finally, I’m contemplating the creation a conversation area where we can all get together to chat about whatever we want. Would you spend time in such an area? Please let me know honestly in the comments, since I want to have an idea as to the numbers involved. Also, if you have a suggestion as to how I can create this area, please let me know.

OK… that done, let’s get to the post.

My past three days have been filled with irony.

I finished an essay I believed was practically finished at four o’clock the following morning.

I woke up in time, got dressed on time and drove to campus on time. Only to have my car break down at the most inopportune moment. Just as I resigned to the fact that I was going to be late for the hand-in, someone came past and helped me to park the car. I realized that it was nearly impossible for me to get the project printed and handed in, since the queues at the printers were incredibly long… and everyone seemed to be printing out Bibles. But… I somehow managed to get the project in exactly one minute before the deadline.

Oh and I went back to my car and tried hope against hope to start it. Yep. You guessed it.

Last night I went to another dance with the same friend of before… and bumped into that guy. This after I decided that I would likely never see him again and that this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He in continuing the trend, asked me to one dance and left immediately afterwards. So I saw just enough of him to have to put myself through my mental pep-talk. Again.

And today, when I have to tidy my F-5 tornado stricken room (well, that’s what it looks like. except that it’s still here…), clean the bathroom and start studying for two tests next week, now has a muse breathing in my neck, reminding me not so subtly that Gawain is waiting for his interview. That Ward might lose his nerve and leave until next time. And that I haven’t actively written anything in the Beast in three weeks.

I have to say though, my life is certainly exciting. I never know when something is going to completely in the opposite way from what I planned. It keeps me on my toes. And it gives me something to laugh about – even if it is in a sad way.  

Do you also get streaks of irony? Do you also laugh? What else is going on in your life?