The Day My House was Set on Fire: Part 1

Disaster can strike in the time that it takes to move from one table to another one in Starbucks. Five minutes after booting up my laptop, favorite table opened. I shut down...moved over...and got the Blue Screen.

With time and persistence and pluck, I can retrieve most of the files that I lost--except one: I'd failed to make a backup copy of my work in progress. And I was just days away from sending the 'show copy' to my beta readers.

I did find a saved second draft on a flash--but this was from a half-year ago and the book had been through many drafts since then.

The work I faced was staggering--assuming that I could remember enough of my changes to start.

Also, I had a new challenge:  once again I'd been left without a laptop, having to rely on one-hour sessions on library computers. I felt tempted to quit--and yet I had to try before abandoning what I believed was the best of my Boss MacTavin novels.

I had proven persistence and pluck. But I had no strategy for coping with computer time restraints.

So, that became the first all-important step.

Stay tuned for updates as I go. The Boss Recovery Copy is already underway, forty-odd pages completed.

The next report will tell you how--with my house burned down--I returned to the house of my youth...the way I used to write/revise before there were computers.

This is shaping up to be one of my life's great adventures.