My computer ate an entire chapter of A of A!

[inzilbeth]

I hate computers! I've always hated them and after last night I hate them with an even greater passion.

I spend about two hours yesterday evening finally kicking into shape an extra chapter for Aspects of Aragorn. It had been a bit of a pig and I'd been getting nowhere fast with it. So you can imagine my relief when I went to click 'save', fully intending to send it onto Cairistiona and Passolargo for their invaluable opinions.

Well I'm still not quite sure what happen, but the computer did not save it. It was nowhere to be found. Fortunately I have a good friend those knowledge of computers is inversely proportional to my own. But after an hour on the phone, he sadly pronounced my chapter well and truly lost for good. All 11 pages of it!

I didn't burst into tears. It was only a chapter, I told myself; no one died. It was by now after 10pm and I had been up since 4am. I was of half a mind to abandon the whole thing but instead, and I'm quite proud of myself for doing this, I turned around and started rewriting it, though looking at that first line with 11 more pages to go was very daunting. I kept going until 11.30pm at which point I was writing total gibberish. Thankfully, I've not in work this week, so today, I shelved all my plans for the day and kept at it all morning. Five hours later it is at least recognisable as the same chapter though there are still no end of frustrating bits that just don't read the same this time round.

The moral of this story: never ever work on anything without a copy of the original somewhere else. I certainly never want to do that again.

Oh the chapter is called 'Roheryn.'  It'll be here in a couple of weeks [I hope!]

Comments

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Oh my, I hope it's not a bug. I wouldn't even know where to begin with something like that. So far everything has been OK today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm glad you didn't think I was completely daft about that brain stuff!

[lissas-elves.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you didn't think I was completely daft about that brain stuff!

No, I know what you mean. Have tried it a couple of times and become real annoyed with myself; NiRi described it quite well - lol.

I've taken to carrying a notebook with me always. If a few lines suddenly spring to mind they go down on paper immediately 'cause they don't come back later.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

I try and jot things down too. I few weeks back I was trying to write a new chapter in a hurry but had a long job to do with the sheep on the Saturday so rather than lose the writing time, I kept thinking about the chapter the whole time and so was forever climbing out of the sheep pens to go back to the vehicle to write down my ideas. It drove Skip absolutely crazy as he always follows me everywhere in case I need him. After a few times, I'll swear he was looking at me as if to say 'what ARE you doing?' LOL!

[lissas-elves.livejournal.com]

lol - poor Skip! How about training him to fetch the notebook instead? Or getting one of those you keep in a little 'pocket' to protect it.

How's the rewrite going? I hope you haven't run into any more problems with the comp.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Training Skip to fetch the notebook? That's a good idea; it would give him something to do while I'm busy worming or whatever. Things have a habit of falling out of my pockets when I'm doing sheep things and generally disappear into the mud never to be seen again!
Well, the rewrite is slowly coming together, thanks. There are still those annoying places where I just can't remember what I wrote first time round but it could be worse.

How did the blue tongue vaccine go? Have you done it yet?