Nothing is more annoying than when you intentionally choose not to save a file, yet Microsoft Word saves the file anyway. In this particular case, I lost four days of work on my novel. I write my novel from two different computers: my home desktop and my mobile laptop.
As I have been running crazily behind deadline, I have been pulling all the stops to write wherever and whenever I can. I have been writing while working at my temporary job, which gives me plenty of leeway and downtime to do so. And I have also been writing at home, even though I am really tired after a long day of work having pushed several veterans to different locations of a wide, expansive hospital.
So imagine my dismay at having lost four days of work in spite of intentionally taking steps to not do so.
About four days ago, I had finished updating my novel to that particular point. However, I have always left the file open on my desktop as a constant reminder that I need to be proactive in working diligently toward my July 4 self-imposed, yet tentative deadline. All work was saved on a USB memory stick that I constantly switch between my desktop and laptop as I flexibly work from both computers.
But I actually had worked on my novel this past Thursday and Friday (today is Sunday) utilizing my laptop PC. I had saved the work after both writing sessions were completed. Then yesterday I went to the House of Java, my favorite coffeehouse, to complete a key romantic scene between two of my main characters. Again, I saved my file before coming home.
Then when I got home, I went ahead and prepared to bring the file back up on my desktop, which still had the previously saved data up on the screen. Naturally, I closed out the file without saving. I even observed to see if it was going to ask me whether or not I wanted to save, and it didn't. Next, I opened the file (which should have been the up-to-date data). To my horror, I realized that Bill Gates' amazing Office program somehow saved the old data over the new, hereby setting me back three days toward the completion of my novel.
I was LIVID! I did everything I could to see if there was a way that I could retrieve the old data. And apparently there was nothing I could do. I even wasted time trying to chat with Microsoft tech support (which ended up being about as useful as tits on a bull).
So here I sit, attempting to psych myself up to reapproach my novel. I understand that the most successful people somehow manage to turn catastrophe into opportunity. And this proactive nature is something I need to adopt for myself. So instead of looking at this as time lost and effort wasted, I will instead look at this as an opportunity to rewrite what I have already written in a better and even more edgy fashion! Here's to opportunity!
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