Technical Difficulties; or How I Learned to Back Up My Files the Hard Way

Those of you who have read the odd entry from time to time will know that, of the projects I have proposed in this blog, my target of a 360 page book was the one I was most pre-occupied with, most inclined to write about and most proud of to date.

It is therefor with some regret and at least an equal measure of personal shame that I must report the following: on or about November 13, 2011 at approximately 9:30 am a piece of previously presumed "unbreakable" hardware malfunctioned and delivered at least 150 of the 180 pages written to date into the 'eternal ether and beyond' that is the final resting place of all corrupted data files.

I have not yet had the heart to confirm the exact page count by referring to my last hard backup which, I am sure you can gather from the previous paragraph, took place before several of my more recent periods of inspiration.

I am, as I am sure you can imagine, pretty pissed. I direct my current rage by turns at the manufacturer who designed a machine with an obvious self-destruct mechanism and at myself for trusting said manufacturer and failing to back-up the damn thing as often as I thought to myself "hmmm I should really do a back-up soon" but then wandered off to watch Star Trek instead.

So, as its stands, my project goals stand at the following degrees of completion at year 2:
A) Novel 30/360 pages (approximate);
B) Painting (see attached photographs); and
C) Opera (One Act - lyrics only).


There is, however, no use in crying over spilled milk and I will say that, in some ways, the utter destruction of what I had written over the last 6-8 months is, in one sense, a relief. It's easier to revise something with a complete overhaul than it is to do it in bits and pieces. Having got as far as half way through the story this time meant I had committed to various plot developments that created small problems in terms of character and dialogue developments in later scenes. Now I have the opportunity to redesign the elements that were troubling me without having to go through every page with a fine tooth comb to correct them. So, that's a plus.

Let me be your spokesperson, save early save often and, most important, save in multiple, consistent locations.