This week, you guys…I swear…AHHH!
Okay, hold on. Let’s start off on a positive note…
So, last weekend I finally overcame my blah, lazy, “I don’t wanna work on this” mood with my manuscript. Woot, woot! Every time I open it now, I’m there, eager to write and tell my characters’ story. Better yet, I’m gradually getting past that dreaded middle section and entering the end zone–aka, the fun zone, filled with plenty of action-packed, twisting-turning, “Ahhh!” moments. I can’t wait to write them!
Okay, so now for the not-so-good stuff.
Despite my refreshed motivation, it’s been near impossible to sit down and write. Last weekend was brimming with pre-planned/pre-committed events, including a birthday party, volunteer work, and my youngest nephew’s church dedication. Add in my regular chores and life stuff, and I only managed to write about 3,000 words 😦 . However, I didn’t let my lack of production get me down. With great determination, I used my newfound motivation to carry me into the workweek. And it did! On Monday and Tuesday I wrote nearly 7,000 words! Yay, right?
Well, hold your applause.
On Wednesday, I went to open my manuscript and discovered those 7,000 words from Monday and Tuesday were gone. Poof! Zap! Bye bye!
How did this happen? I don’t know! The only thing I can figure is I accidentally saved/replaced the wrong file. *cue screams and tears*…So, yeah. That sorta killed my writing mojo on Wednesday. Once the horror of this erroneous event faded, I made a decision to simply outline those lost chapters, rather than rewrite them. This is a first draft, and these are middle chapters, so why bother rewriting them? As long as I know where the story’s going, it’s fine.
…Still, it hurts. That was A LOT of hard work to lose.
Anyways, if that wasn’t enough, my afternoons the past two days have been interrupted by tornados and lots of hail.
Twice now, my co-workers and I have been ordered to leave our desks and take shelter in the basement (don’t worry, I grabbed my flash drive with my manuscript on it before I fled and took cover, haha). To be honest, I’ve been far more annoyed than scared by all the severe weather. I’m in Denver, so I haven’t been too concerned about an F-4 sweeping through town. Honestly, I’ve been more worried about flooding and hail damage. AND losing precious writing time, which I have.
Seriously, I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West has been mocking me all week.
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little manuscript, too!”
*grumble grumble*
All I can say is thank goodness it’s Friday, and thank goodness it’s Memorial Day Weekend. I will be spending the majority of the next three days writing–writing, writing, writing! Because, I’m not gonna lie, I’m panicking a little here. I have all this pent up excitement/momentum/energy, and if I don’t use it soon, I’m afraid it’s going to disappear just like those lost chapters.
So, with that said, here is today’s Friday Funny…Or maybe this week it’s more like a Friday Freakout?
Hope your week was better than mine, and no tornados tried to sweep you off to the Land of Oz.
…Okay, time to hop to it. Let’s write!
Jen’s Weekly Roundup
Music Monday – Take It Off – Kesha
Jen’s Top 10 “How Have You NOT Read This” YA Books
Make Your Character Reactions Twice as Interesting
Jen's Pen Den 
I have nominated you for a Liebster Award. http://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/liebster-award/
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My heart goes out to you, Jen! I remember when I was in university and lost an entire book when the computers in the lab crashed. Talk about wanting to pull your hair out! Fortunately, a computer prof was able to work his magic and find it in the system for me. Phew! (Yes, this is a true story. If you don’t believe me, you can watch the video at http://poetryperfected.wordpress.com/about/ to see me talking about this.)
I thought I’d offer a few words of advice. There are several ways to back up your files: Dropbox; an external drive; and the easiest one, Google Drive.
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Eeks! Glad you were able to recover your work!
Thanks for those suggestions. I do backup my stuff every night on a flash drive. Unfortunately, I must’ve dragged the old file on my flash drive to my desktop, rather than dragging the new file from my desktop to my flash drive…ahhh! Oh well. Time for a new/additional backup strategy, haha
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I feel for you Jen. I’ve lost the odd page of writing in my past by crashing programs or accidental wiping, but never that much – and afterwards I always feel deflated and unmotivated to recreate the work.
I’ve now fallen into the habit of ‘saving as’ and numbering the file each time I make a huge change – which overwrites/deletes nothing. So far it’s worked for me.
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It really is deflating, isn’t it? Ugh. I’ve had a solid backup strategy for years, but it finally failed me this past week 😦 I’ll definitely take your useful tip into consideration, because I don’t want this to happen again. Ever!!
Thank you!
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I recently discovered that my box of all the different self-published chapbooks of my best poetry is gone. Nowhere to be found. Not sure, but I think I may have left it outside to be destroyed by enemies (I made several during my active addiction along with making plenty of stupid mistakes in placing items of value where they could be f***ed with) back when I was still using and living in the garden shed. Not that all that really relates to what happened to you, just saying it feels like I can relate. Sorry for rambling. 🙂 peace!
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HA! It appears I’m not alone in this tragedy. Good to know.
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