Almost Lost
Last night, while talking on the phone with my friend, Alicia, I decided to shut down my computer for the night and I closed the most recent draft of the re-vision (the draft I’d been working on every waking moment for the past three days). Because I’m paranoid about computers, and out of sheer habit, I immediately went to the desktop to re-open it–something I just do, I can’t explain why. It wasn’t there. I did a search for it and found nothing. Alicia said goodbye so she could go give her daughter a bath and I hung up almost before she finished her last sentence. I had changed the name to EGNDraft two days before but I hadn’t emailed it to myself (which is what I most often do as back up).
I did the search again, hoping that I’d just overlooked it. It had to be there. I knew this because while typing the last few chapters I was clicking save at the end of every paragraph even though the autosave was working just fine. Nothing, no where. I got that sinking feeling and began to wonder what in the world I was going to do if the last three days of work were gone. The only draft I could find was the draft from last Thursday night (before I’d changed the document name).
I grabbed my notebook and went next door to ask my mother and sister to look for it. Another set of eyes is always good. They couldn’t find it. I’m sure my sister could see the look of panic on my face. I’d been buried in this rewrite for the past month. I had nothing in longhand, only a few sparse notes about some Coltrane dates and basic plot changes. Which wouldn’t be much help since I had changed much of the ending and written most of the last three days off the top of my head. And I hadn’t done line editing since Thursday and so nothing had been printed out.
She took one look at what had to be look of absolute helplessness and called her friend Julius. Julius is the king of computers. It’s his job somehow. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what he does exactly, but he is my family’s Geek Squad. Up until now, my requests have been simple, “Will you help me add a memory card?” or “Which system is better for this or that?” He is always helpful, always gracious–even when he’s probably thinking “You’ve got to be kidding?” It’s my former sister-in-law and my mother who have the more demanding calls to Julius when their harddrive has crashed or been infected by spyware. But last night, I was happy to hear Julius on the other end of the phone. “Relax. We’ll find it,” he said, and we did. After searching places I didn’t know existed on my computer, he walked me through a search that brought up a string of temporary files. I opened a folder and there it was. I have never in my life been so happy to see that little Word document icon–EGNDraft. I could have cried. All I managed was an emphatic “Thank you” and an offer to buy dinner (I don’t cook). He was as gracious as ever.
Honestly, as I write this and consider that I could have lost it, I’m still a little shaky. I don’t think I would have made it out of bed this morning if I hadn’t found that draft. Thank God for Julius!
Happy writing!
Q
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