Today was worse than usual. Okay, so it's hard sometimes to come up with a subject for my weekly rant, although I find if I just start typing something comes to me. But, after a few days spent in a slump wherein I played endless games of Spider Solitaire and Free Cell, while checking my e-mail every five minutes just to break the boredom, I woke up this morning determined to be Productive (note the capital P).I have revised "Wherever You May Be" and dozen times and can do no more. It is time to send it out into the world to make its fortune. My big decision this morning was to dig out my historical romance and try once again to finish it.
Now, having observed other people's problems with computers eating or otherwise destroying their precious manuscripts, I saved mine in an external hard drive. So, retrieving it should be simple, right?
It wasn't in the file where I had left it. It had wandered far afield. My first thought was that it was gone forever, perhaps orbiting merrily around Jupiter. My second thought was that I could never, never find the energy (or the wits) to write it again. From scratch.
Then I did a Search. After a great deal of chortling and chuckling, my computer brought forth the file I was missing.
Here is the path: Computer->Sandy Bruney Backup->Documents_>BCK1->Archives->_nsd_C->Documents and Settings->Sandra Bruney->My Documents->Documents->My file.
It took me the better part of an hour just to access the file. Then, my diabolical computer had one more trick up its sleeve. Every Word file had been converted to a .doc.nsz file. Which wouldn't open in any program I could find. At last I tried opening it in Notepad and eureka! the words I had labored over some two years ago came back to life.
I'm happy again, but much too tired and frazelled to tackle the story now.
Productivity will have to wait until another day.
Oh -- tomorrow is the last day to enter the drawing for a free copy of "The Almost Bride" and a copy of your choice of one of my hostesses' romance novels. Just go to http://wp.me/p1Ggnm-cH and leave a comment with your e-mail address for a chance to win. And thanks to everyone who already dropped by. Your support means a lot to me.
Hi Sandy, losing files is so annoying, but oh too common. A few months back, I got an inspiration and started a new novel. I really liked what I'd done (only about 3000 words, but I was pleased which is a rare thing). THen, I went back to actually finish the novel I was working on before inspiration struck.
ReplyDeleteLast week, I went back to my inspired opening--only I couldn't find the file anywhere. Worse, I couldn't remember what I'd called it. Still,I searched my computer, every flash drive I own and every printed page I still have looking for the pages or anything written around the date. Nada.
Two days ago, a friend called and asked if I'd lost a flash drive. Whew. SHe'd found it under her car seat--I'd lost it when we drove to a conference in September. The file was on that drive. So much for being the "queen of back-ups."
did the same....and nearly stroked out....fortunately, hub was able to remove the hard drive after the computer died.
ReplyDeleteAck! I'm so glad you found it but what a hassle, Sandy! I've seriously had days like that!
ReplyDeleteSo I'm assuming I did not win since it's now another Tuesday. :) But I did visit you at Alicia's blog. She's an Okie home girl.