Gigabytes.
The flood originated from a flimsy coffee to go cup I set down next to my computer and then proceeded to dump all over the keyboard. I acted quickly to dry things out but within minutes I received a message to install a system on the hard drive and seconds thereafter everything went dark. No survivors.
I was just in the process of sending three new chapters of the new story I'm working on, Things I Never Told My Wife to Pixel and then to do a holiday backup onto an external drive. Neither were successful. My most recent backup was a month and a half ago when I hit the road after my heart problems.
So there you have it. Losses in the thousands of words.
This will be a long post.
As it happened, because I was traveling, I'd been working on my lightweight backup computer. I still had my production computer and restored the most recent backup on it.
Let me say first that many people have suggested that I use a cloud backup system. I understand that is logical for people who are plugged into a cable modem or corporate network. I am on a metered network. I travel a lot and wifi is often, if not usually, unavailable. So, I use a cellular hotspot. Do not be fooled by statements about "Unlimited Data". My data is high speed (4G) up to 15gb. Then it slows down to 600bps. About the speed of a 9600 baud modem. I have two "unlimited" hotspots (15gb) and this month I had to buy an extra 5gb to make it through to the end of the month. That was with my normal moving of files, movies, and layouts. If I backed up my photos, music, and all the rest of that work to the cloud I would be in excess of 60gb per month. I understand there are cellular services that have real unlimited data but they are metro area based. When I'm camping in National Parks, deserts, and along the roadway, I can't reach a signal from those providers at all. A slow signal is better than none.
What I should have done was back up more frequently.
So, I went hunting to find out what was lost.
1) I was able to restore the first ten chapters of Things I Never Told My Wife from earlier email exchanges, but lost the next three I'd written. Pixel originally thought chapter 10 would be the end but I had an idea for the next five chapters. I am struggling to recreate the storyline from there but it might end at chapter ten instead of fifteen afterall.
2) I lost most of the original files of American Royalty 1: Coming of Age but was able to restore emailed copy from Old Rotorhead. Sadly, all the material prepared and formatted for posting of the story had to be recreated so I can (and will) start posting it next week for patrons and in about three weeks here on SOL.
3) All the files for Stocks & Blondes were lost. I had email again to restore the edited version and downloaded the html files from my website, but all the prep for the eBook and print book commercial release were destroyed. I can recreate all that, but it means commercial release will be delayed at least a month. The story is complete on my website and all chapters were uploaded for posting on SOL, I just can't edit them.
4) Records of word counts and stats after Nov 7 are gone. I'll make no attempt to reconstruct those.
The good news is that except the new chapters of Things, I can recreate the other material. And all of "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins" books 1-5 were completed before the November 7 backup. In order to create an extra safety net, I've uploaded all existing files of my current works to my website in preparation for release.
I guess there is something to be said for starting the new year with a "clean slate". Have you had enough jokes about entering the Roaring 20s or having 2020 hindsight after the first? I have, so I won't plague you with any.
I have been following a very interesting conversation in the comments of Double Tears that started out with talking about the implementation of National Service and somehow morphed into a dialog about public assistance, taxes, and who should have to pay for the indigent. I'm happy to let people express their opinions based on experience and observation. When a "fact" is presented as absolute truth, however, I'd like to see a data source. If you don't have a data source, please don't express it as a fact.
My own opinion, based on experience and observation but not backed by a data source, differs from all the sides expressed in the very civil discussion in comments. I think we have become a people who weigh our decisions on helping someone against whether they deserve our help, have earned our help, or are entitled to our help. When did we stop helping people simply because they need it?
I wish you the very best for a happy New Year. May the best day you had in 2019 compare equally to your worst day of 2020.
author Devon Layne