Disaster!

DISASTER! Being an account of how I survived the Great Flash Drive File Overwrite Catastrophe of 2010. Dateline: Redmond, Washington, August 25, 2010. There I sat, within the cafe of the native Borders store, sipping my tasty non-fats mocha, laptop computer atop lap, writing away. And boy, was I writing. I wrote like the wind. The words poured out of meâ€"an entire new scene added after I realized that within the outline I’d launched a character who came out of nowhere, did something convenient, then went away. I hate it when other folks do this, so I needed to repair it. A good idea introduced itself, and off I went. It was a thing of magnificence, a masterpiece of latest urban fantasy. I was firing on all cylinders. I don’t understand how much time went byâ€"perhaps an hour and a half. Not lengthy. That’s how well it was flowing. Flowing just like the mighty Mississippi. No, more like the eternal Nileâ€"that will make extra sense if the e-book is actually printed. I was so proud of the 3500 or so phrases I’d accomplished that I took the rest of the afternoon to complete studying Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valenteâ€"a brilliant novel that I wholeheartedly recommend. Then I left the mall and went to Trader Joe’s to select up one thing for dinner, and went house. There I told my spouse how awesome a day’s writing it had been. I’m about a third of the best way by way of this e-book, a point the place normally I can be hating it, doubting that it’s truly potential that any human being, much much less me, may possibly actually end a novel. I mean, it’s inconceivable. It’s the hardest thing ever. It was easier to go to the moon. But with this one, it’s all good. The phrases fly out virtually unbidden. I’m shocking myself, exploring new characters, tapping into some seemingly limitless wellspring of artistic power. It’s bliss. I’ve caught fleeting glimpses of this feeling before. It’s what retains me writing by way of the long, darkish nights of the soul when the very thought of it is just absurdâ€"why would anyone even attempt to do this? As I was telling my wife all this pleased unicorns and glossy rainbow stuff, I turned the laptop back on, plugged in my little USB flash drive, and copied the revised file onto it so I had it in at least two places. The plan was then to put it aside onto the desktop laptop upstairs so I would have it in three placesâ€"triple redundancy. Just like NASA. I’ve pontificated about this before, you realize, proper right here at Fantasy Author’s Handbook. That process complete, I shut down the laptop computer, frolicked for a short while, made then ate dinner, then wandered upstairs to switch the up to date file to the desktop laptop. It was at this level that my life descended right into a nightmarish hellscape of desperate regret. On the desktop computer’s hard drive was the file CleoBook.doc, dated August 23, 2010, 6:09 PM. Okay, I took a time off from writing, so sue me. Then on the fl ash drive: CleoBook.doc, August 23, 2010, 6:09 PM. Waitâ€"no, that’s not right. I run downstairs, open up the laptop computer, suffering via what felt like interminable hours for it to start out up. There in the folder Cleo Book is the same file: August 23, 2010, 6:09 PM. Though I so, so, so didn’t need it to be true, I knew what I’d carried out right away. I’d moved the old file from the flash drive into the folder on the laptop computer as an alternative of moving the new file from the laptop to the flash drive. Distracted by my story of how superior a day’s writing I’d experienced I must have hit okay when the pc asked me if I wished to overwrite a newer file. The dialog field seems precisely the same as when it goes the other course. It depends on the operator truly paying consideration. That was it, the whole day’s workâ€"3500 words, and chapters moved around and renumberedâ€"gone within the blink of an electron. Holding out some imprecise hope that the info was r ecoverable, I went on a Google bender, scouring the web for any advice, and found a couple of message boards on which people who’d accomplished exactly what I’d just accomplished cried out for help. The responses included language like “you’re hooped,” and, “you’re simply boned.” Some mentioned perhaps I could pay tons of of dollars for someone to attempt to piece it together from fragments on my onerous drive, but that most likely wouldn’t work. I’ve by no means heard that expression, “hooped,” however I’d been “boned” before. If “hooped” is worse than “boned,” I felt hooped. I was utterly and completely demoralized. From the high of joyfully writing a guide I’m coming to actually get pleasure fromâ€"get pleasure from maybe greater than anything I’ve ever writtenâ€"I was crushed all the way down to the ultimate low. Irretrievable artistic manna surrendered to the void by one blind, boneheaded mouse click. I went right into a state of such d eep mourning, it was actually as if somebody had died. I was inconsolable. That work of maybe ninety minutes abruptly took on this overwhelming, epic significance, and I just didn’t know what to do. All day the following day I moped round, barely mustering the power to check my e-mail and sustain with the world round me. The thought of having to write down it once more from scratch seemed like essentially the most painful thing on the planet. Finally, I pressured myself into motion by making a Twitter promise that I would recreate the lost textual content and write another new chapter on prime of it, that day. The remainder of the afternoon I wandered around engaged within the pettiest of petty work-avoidance strategies till it was time to make dinner. But after dinner, I did it. I dragged myselfâ€"and I mean dragged myselfâ€"upstairs, sat down, and wrote. Well, first, I revised my entire system of organization, then I wrote. I rewrote from reminiscence and from fresh inspiration everything I’d misplaced. I did it. It’s back. The guide remains to be good. I still adore it. I lived. Okay, however by then I was too drained to write a new chapter, so that part of my promise I did not maintain. So what are you able to be taught and how will you benefit from my hideous, painful expertise? I’m a highly organized individual. I’m borderline obsessive-compulsive in some methods, and this is a kind of methods. I’m insane about how I arrange information, back them up, and transfer them. Usually, I have files on 4 separate methods: a laptop computer pc, a desktop pc, a transportable flash drive, and a 500 GB external onerous drive. I’m nuts about folders inside folders, and clear file names. And that’s a part of what obtained me screwed up. In a pathological need for symmetry, I just lately went via my flash drive and each computer systems and made positive that every one of my folders had the identical names and the same contents. And finally I assume tha t’s what screwed me up. When I’m paying very, very strict considerationâ€"and that normally is the caseâ€"I know which folder window is which, but after they both have the same names, I actually have to look at what I’m doing transferring the file CleoBook.doc from the folder Cleo Book to a different folder named Cleo Book, overwriting a (hopefully) older file additionally named CleoBook.doc. One of the information from the message boards that told me I was hooped was to rename the file each time you open it. That looks as if plenty of work. But yeah, people, it’s much less work than rewriting 3500 phrases of creative prose. In each different method I’ve shed my old computer habits of worrying about conserving disk house. The Word file I’m working with is tiny in the greater half-a-terabyte scheme of issues, even a 3rd of an ~80,000 word novel. There’s no cause not to have a number of versions of the identical 392 KB textual content file in multiple places when the sma llest of the drives (the flash drive, after all) can contain four GB. Writers really don’t want huge onerous drives. I then went through the flash drive and added the prefix USB- to each folder name, in order that now after I have a folder window open from the flash drive, I’ll comprehend it’s the flash drive and could have a layer extra info to help me transfer the file in the proper course from the folder Cleo Book to the folder USB-Cleo Book, or vice versa. The file I now have saved in three places: the desktop pc, the flash drive, and the again-up hard drive, is named CleoBook082610.doc. When I write the next chapter later tonight, I’ll put it aside as CleoBook082710.doc, so it will by no means be overwritten by the one-chapter-less model CleoBook082610.doc. (Though posted on August 31, I’m scripting this on Friday the 27th.) Am I nuts? Am I simply paranoid? Am I making myself save issues like some type of OCD-addled madman, tapping the light swap five time before I ca n go away the apartment? Permanently lose a day’s work, and let me know the way nuts I am. The fact is, I was fortunate it was only one chapter I had to write again. Those message boards that advised me I was hooped? There have been stories of complete books misplaced. Consider that for a second, and quiver in abject terror. Be cautious out there. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Three thoughts that may assist: 1) Use GoogleDocs to backup your work on the net. As near as I can figure, it doesn’t have an overwrite function. It just puts the file on with a brand new date. (Maybe in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later I’ll figure out the way to overwrite there, however I’m undecided I wish to.) GoogleDocs is now my triple redundancy: computer, flash, GoogleDocs â€" a CD model makes 4 (but I don’t do that daily). As Lester Smith as soon as mentioned, “Trust the Cloud.” 2) When you’ve accomplished a significant chunk of work, don’t just save, save as a new model â€" V1, 1a, 1b, and so forth. I in all probability started doing that after some overwrite disaster of my very own. Thus, I even have many variations of some information, however too many is better than losing a day of great work. three) Not certain what system you’re utilizing, however there may be some autosave model of the file you worked on someplace on the computer as a temp file â€" that hasn’t been “cleaned up” yet by Windows. These recordsdata can typically hang around for days, months, or even longer. Search for temp recordsdata on the same day you have been working and lost the file. It won't get you the entire chunk of work back, nevertheless it would possibly get some. Often, such temp files are hidden in the identical file as your unique doc. (But, if you don’t have the right settings in your Explorer, you can’t even see them.) Finally, I feel your ache, brother! Good luck recovering â€" each actually and spiritually. Great tips, Steve. I’m working on two Macs: the laptop computer is totally obsolete now, the desktop is quickly joining it. I’m planning on a brand new Mac within the next month or so, with the Time Machine feature that might have helped me. Another tip: Email the file to your self. You can even set up a free email account (yahoo, and so forth.) that can act as a file archive, with older versions of informatio n sitting in your inbox. It’s somewhat Old School, but it works and is free. Yeah, I’ve done that, too. More typically, though, it’s e mail to first readers/associates/consultants than to myself â€" which, conveniently, exhibits up in my email archive, too. Just in case I need it. 15 years in the past I had one thing related occur to me in faculty on my word processor (simply in case saying ’15 years in the past’ wasn’t courting myself sufficient). Because I by accident overwrote a disk, I had misplaced a complete 12 months of journal entries. I cried for 45 minutes. I was a sobbing, snotty mess. So I know what you imply by mourning a loss. It’s terrible. At least now there are alternatives. Imagine typing for days on a typewriter and then having the manuscript by some means destroyed. Pure horror. It may be possible to recover your authentic file if you can find the appliance’s temp folder. It’s potential… Fill in your particulars below or click on an icon to lo g in: You are commenting utilizing your WordPress.com account. 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