Three weeks ago, my computer died. I didn’t have good backups, despite having promised myself that I would do a manual backup every week. I didn’t want to pay for extra cloud storage, which is why One drive wasn’t working amongst other things that seemed important at the time and that is the reason for my predicament. To cut a long story short I lost three months’ worth of writing and even more editing. Of course, that is not all that I lost. My settings on scrivener worked out carefully over the last year. The updated formatted copies of my books with their blurbs and covers also went up in smoke. I was in shock for several days, not believing the truth, after all my computer wasn’t old so why would the mother board suddenly fail.
When I did recover, and the nice man in the repair shop confirmed my worst fears, he felt so sorry for me he refused to let me pay for his work. I started thinking. I have always known that I am not competent to post writing advice on this page and haven’t wanted too, because there are so many ways of achieving something with creative arts, that my way might not work for you. I have long recognised that others learn more quickly and are more prone to success than I am. However, it occurred to me that if I recorded my struggles and, my failures and victories in the world of writing, you might want to follow along and those of you as prone to disaster as I, might find comfort in my daily struggles and my equally frequent joy. I will publish every few days or when the page seems full. I don’t intend to promise anything that I can’t stick like daily posts, but it will give you a taste of the life of one writer, who still must cook meals, wash pots, deal with pain (bad back), care for animals and a husband and struggle with bad and gloomy days.
4 October 2022.
My new computer has arrived. The box is sitting on the coffee table of our snug, the room which also holds my desk. This morning though we must visit the bank in Lugo, our local bank is not good enough because we need to register new ID. Not only have my passport been renewed but I now have an identity card, the bank need copies on file. Ironically is my KDP royalties that have triggered this, they can’t make the transfer, without proof that I am still me.
It takes two hours to reach the bank instead of the forty minutes that we were expecting. First the road was closed, then the petrol station had run out of petrol. We backtracked and found another petrol station despite my fears that the whole town had run out. I have had the feeling ever since the computer incident that the world was against me, constantly analysing every event for a sign. I know that it’s not heathy, and at the back of mind is fact that I am normally the optimist in the family and our relationship suffers when I can’t find something positive to look forward to.
Despite my fears we did arrive, and everything was sorted out by the lovely assistant Isobel who was eager to practise her English, meaning the whole transaction was carried out in a bazaar mixture of the two languages. Of course, we had had a coffee next this is Spain! So, it was well into the afternoon before I faced the box on the coffee table.
Under normal circumstances I would be thrilled to have a new toy, I love gadgets of all kinds but on this occasion, I knew that I would have to confront what I had stupidly and needlessly lost and somehow produce a plan to reconstruct everything. Rewriting what you have once written is not as good as writing it the first time.
I sat for a good long time before I plucked up enough courage to open it and face the fact that I three months of work to catch up on.
6 October
All set up and running and in the freezer are enough meals to keep us going for a week. There is enough chestnut and apple soup in the fridge to feed a passing army and I am writing diary entries. a My stash of Cadburys chocolate has been broken into (Thank you Jane you are a life saver). and I am scouring my mind for urgent jobs. Of course, I have not rewritten any part of Sea dead yet although I have spell checked the forty thousand words that still exist. In a few moments I am going to have a coffee with my neighbour, but I’ll let you know when I pluck up enough courage to start work again.
Abigail Thorne 