I have this short story I wrote in the summer. I think it's the best short story I've written in a long time. Then I moved. Again. Second time this year.
Since moving into our new place, the last few weeks, I've been rummaging through boxes and bags and stuff looking for a series of CDs I had burnt. See, I write on a Mac, but do all my Internet business on a PC, so I often have to burn CDs and transfer stuff between.
So, this story, it's not on my PC. Nowhere. I searched online in my e-mail files and a few other places. No story.
Back to the burnt CDs. I haven't been able to find them. No matter where I've looked. They are not in any of the places they should be.
I e-mailed a copy to a certain editor a while back, and I've been considering contacting him to see if he still had a copy of this story somewhere. But honestly, I was kind of embarassed to do so.
Of course the story should still be on my writing Mac. But that Mac hasn't been started up in almost five months.
Tonight I took the plunge. I plugged in the Mac, turned it on ...
... and listened to it whine for a reaaaaalllly long time.
Then, just as hope was lost, it kicked on. But it kept whining. Eventually I figured out the whine was from a CD I had left in the thing.
And ... wallah! ... there was my story! Right on the ole hard drive.
I immediately burnt off three new DVDs and transferred a copy of the story to my PC. Now I'll have to e-mail myself a copy or two and place it in a file or three on a few other places online.
Sheesh!
I know exactly how you feel! I had a similar thing happen with a novel and a corrupted file a few weeks ago. I literally cried when I thought it was gone.
ReplyDeleteGood that you found your story!
Hi Sean,
ReplyDeleteWelcome aboard! Thanks for the comments and feel free to drop in anytime.
Checked out your blog, and was glad to see you were able to retrieve you almost-lost 2,000 words!
Dude! Coulda and shoulda. You weren't embarassed - you just knew you would have been handing me gift-wrapped fodder in the never ending war of one-upmanship we play!
ReplyDeleteGlad you found it, as, if it's what I think it is, I do not have it any longer. Whew!
(P.S. Notice I'm slowly catching up here?)