I got numerous responses to my note about dousing my computer with coffee. Many, many suggestions, most of which could be categorized as
1. Protect your keyboard/computer from spills in the future, dummy.
2. Backup your files all the time, dummy.
3. You can do your own recovery, dummy.
Nearly all were clear evidence of why real tech support asks questions before offering solutions. I know these answers and I'm doing the best I can for a dummy.
As it happens, the Geek Squad has told me they can't get the disk to spin up to recover the files. Very bad news. After I dumped a full cup of coffee on my computer Christmas Eve, the Geek Squad in Oklahoma had the data recovered 24 hours after I brought it in. This one, not so much for what I considered a small spill.
At least I have replacement insurance on the computer, so I should have a new unit soon. I just have to figure out how to get it to happen. Where did I put those papers?
But the data.
Mostly, I'm okay. Everything more than a couple of weeks old I had backed up elsewhere. Email is a great thing when you're passing files back and forth to editors. But the past couple of weeks, I was putting in a flurry of work to get some revisions and ebooks (and print books) done. So, that work was for naught.
1. Re-proofread Not This Time and prepared html to release on my website and update on SOL. That also included designing a print book and cover that are on sale. All I have is the pdf of the interior and cover. Will have to re-do that work.
2. Re-proofread The Hero Lincoln Trilogy and prepared it for release on my website and an update on SOL. That also included designing a print book and cover for a single volume of the trilogy and individual stories. Had not yet converted it to eBook either. Will have to re-do that work.
3. Had been working through the edits and formatting them as I received them for the rewrite of American Royalty (retitled Rise and Awaken). I'll have to start over from the edited files I received in email from the two editors and re-read and correct the first sixteen of twenty-three chapters.
4. I won't need to re-do the rewrite of The Art and Science of Love because the most current version is still in the hands of Old Rotorhead and when it comes back, I'll be able to review the remaining edits and start prepping that for re-release. That will come after the first of the year and will be posted on SOL as a v-2 new story because it is extensively different than the original version posted here nine years ago.
5. I had all the semi-final version of Pussy Pirates backed up on my website, so I will be able to grab the final edits from Pixel the Cat and incorporate them to have that project still on schedule to begin posting here on 11/3 and hopefully be available in eBook and Paperback at the same time.
6. For Mayhem or Madness is complete and queued for posting both on SOL and on my website. It is also up and available as eBook and print. But I no longer have any of the production files and would have to do a new layout and eBook if I needed to correct them or expand distribution.
7. Three of my four works in progress I have complete backups of on my website and could recover. The fourth one, which I am spending more time on than any other, is a new Swarm story I've tentatively called The Assassin. I did a ton of work on it in the previous three days and that is gone. It included a Swarm Wiki entry I'd been asked to produce, a detailed outline of the whole book, and a set of notes of issues to deal with in the founding of a new township in my colony. Those three items need to be reproduced from pretty much memory. And I'd done an elaborate spreadsheet on the population growth for my planet and that is being rebuilt from the ground up. I'm getting different results than I did the first time.
So, I have my work cut out for me for the next few weeks, especially as I'm trying to get ready for NaNoWriMo in just 20 days.
In the meantime, I need to get my trailer deep cleaned in the next ten days so I can drop it off for a couple of repairs on the twenty-first, before I head across Puget Sound to Port Townsend for the winter. Guess how much of that project I've gotten done this week!
Carry on!