When Hazard Becomes Opportunity

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!