I've been saving my writing on discs or flashdrives for years now. But what did I do yesterday? I copied over a chapter with an older version and lost 500 words.
Gone. Wiped out. Lost forever.
Of course, I'm sure those 500 words were golden. Great. Important.
This after I had to drag myself to the laptop after spending a relaxing day with the New York Times, finishing a baby afghan and going for a two-hour plus walk. I may also have been affected by a show I saw about W.P. Kinsella, the author who wrote SHOELESS JOE. The movie Field of Dreams is based on it. He wrote for two days, four pages a day or the revision equivalent (he never explained exactly what that meant), then took a day off.
Still, I got my butt in the chair and wrote 1101 words, finishing Chapter Seven and starting Chapter Eight. It was the end of Chapter Seven I lost. Which meant, having gone on to another scene, it was tough to remember everything I'd included in the first draft of Chapter Seven when I went back and tried to recreate it. I think I got the highlights, but see above re thinking I've lost some good stuff.
And all because I wasn't paying attention when I went to save.
Sigh.
Here are my totals for the weekend and cumulative so far:
Saturday (Day 7 of my unofficial NaNo): a.m. - 1249, p.m - 776 for a day's total of 2025.
Infamous Day 8 - when I went back and rewrote, I managed to add a few words, so the total came to 1192, for a cumulative total of 16,653.
Pretty good.
One thing I've realized: if NaNo is a sprint, I prefer a daily jog. If I write in the morning, that leaves me time for other things. I think I'd rather do that than write for two days and take a full day off, because my way means I'm better able to keep the story in my head. If you know what I mean.
Later today: NaNo totals for today and Tales of the Sourdough: I bake the first loaves.
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