Have you ever done something so stupid you just want to throw yourself out of a second-story Provo library window? I have. Just did, in fact. And the pavement below ain't looking so bad.
I've been stuck on a certain chapter for a month now. This is what happens when you don't outline. What can I say? Outlining for me is like curb-stomping my own teeth (don't know how I'd accomplish that... shutup, I get to choose the similes around here). I abhor outlining; that's just how it is. There's a problem with this, though. When I'm an idiot and save over something I didn't mean to, I lose whatever I saved over. It's gone, bye, bye.
I managed to unstick myself in this chapter. It took a week and two Fridays of writing, but I did it. I was finally able to move on. (I can't write the next chapter until the one I'm on is finished... probably another downside to not outlining). So I pulled out my flash drive to back up the day's work... I have two windows open--my flash drive, and the folder on my computer with my chapters in it--and I start dragging files over. It wasn't until five minutes later that I realized I did my dragging in the wrong direction. I pulled the file off of my flash drive and replaced the one on my computer.
"Ah, shit," I said to myself (cussing in the Provo library).
"Oh well. Sucks, but I'll just rewrite what I wrote today." It's still fresh in my mind so I'll cruise through it and be done.
I opened up the file to start rewriting...
"Ah, double shit! Shit! I didn't back up the changes I made last week! Now two days of writing are gone!" (This is where I started looking out the window). "Son of a bitch!"
And now I lost an entire chapter. I could get most of what I wrote today down, but last week... that was so long ago. I can't remember the crap I came up with last week! So it's gone. And I'm really pissed. The lost chapter was nearly 4,000 words, and I typically write 1,000 words an hour. So that's four bloody hours to rewrite chapter seventeen. Might as well give up now, and jump out of the damn window.
I was so excited (an hour ago) that Gunlord was back on track. I've got to hurry and finish, after all... since I told a few editors at Worldcon last month that the book was completed...
I think I'll start on my next project now. Goodbye, Gunlord. The last 9 months sure have been fun.
*cries like a baby, kicks out windowpane, dives head-first to meet the sidewalk*
Thanks for that, my day looks much better than it did before now. :)
ReplyDeleteReally though, that sucks. That very reason is why I love my two monitor set up at work. No dragging accidents.
Yeah, I know how that is. I back stuff up by emailing it to myself, or emailing it to someone I trust. Your post makes me want to use Time Machine more often, though.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do when I get sick of a project I'm working on is (usually) work on a second one at the same time. That way I can schedule my writing so that once I"m done with a few thousand words of the first one, I get to work on the exciting new second one. Otherwise, I'd just flit from project to project and never finish anything...
Anyway, better luck next time.
That's terrible!! I'm so sorry. Hopefully you'll be able to catch up. It's happened to me before, and it's no fun. (Which is why, when I drag files for backups, I always have the backup folder closed. Just drag it to the icon. :/)
ReplyDeleteROFL! I don't know how I missed this one but it's a gem. Especially since we've all been there.
ReplyDeleteI actually ended up creating a 'Bone Yard' document. It starts with chapter one and if I cut out huge chunks from a given chapter, it all gets copied into the Bone Yard first. Some chapters have a few pages and some have none.
When I get done and do my read through, I figure I'll go through the Bone Yard and see if there's anything I want to use.