I accidentally deleted my manuscripts.
On Thursday of last week I was updating my latest brainstorm for my current Work in Progress, which is in the draft stage for the next couple of months. I needed to add a couple paragraphs to my historical fiction book and I couldn’t find it in my saved documents. I had used a program for a couple of years, starting with this manuscript, but wasn’t able to see any of the information. The titles for about half the chapters were there, but every single folder that was supposed to hold my word was completely blank.
…
Let me put this into context. This was about four years of research, dialogue, drafting, and editing, and I was hoping to send it off for a professional edit next spring. It wasn’t just a few pages of my journals. I told myself not to panic and what did I do? I immediately started panicking, especially after I didn’t see the backup on my computer. A few weeks ago my computer was screaming at me to minimize the space, so I deleted a lot of old photos from several years ago, up to the last year. My manuscript draft must have been with those.
When I couldn’t find two more documents I had written, I called my twin sister, who is also in the process of writing another book. I cried when I was telling her, thinking that this path that I thought I was headed towards would be completely obliterated because I would have to start all over.
I did check trash and found portions of two manuscripts. Then a couple more. I spent close to four hours scouring my computer, the software, trash, and my backups. I was finally able to download a full version of my historical fiction, but it put the chapters in alphabetical order by title. It is currently a puzzle that I will have to figure out later, but I have it. All my other manuscripts (between 1-2 new drafts a year since 2018) were at least partially recovered, so at least I have something to work with.
During the last couple of years, I’ve hand-written my first drafts, so I have completed manuscripts of those two, even if it’s not the latest version.
The first draft is always the worst, right? So maybe forcing the chance to fill in the gaps will actually make these better stories in the long run.
And I will be saving my latest drafts on my external hard drive in the future.
