Loss and an interesting under-reaction

So any writer who has lost a piece of work in the past understands the grieving process you go through. Whether a corrupted file, a PC crash, or the misplacement of a hard drive, losing something you've written can cause tears, heartache, sighs, gnashing of teeth, pulling of hair and, at the end, either the determination to start again, or to just give up and play computer games instead.

Recently I lost my mobile hard drive.  It has approximately 20 years worth of writing bits and bobs on it.  Every draft of Hiding The Smile.  Every new version of A Familiar Fear (now possibly NOT coming to a Kindle near you any time soon).  About 50 pages of a sci-fi novel I'd started called Dust, that had some nifty ideas and I was pleased with so far.  All of a book that was pretty poor called The Named, but it was long and it was finished, and that's important.  A feature length film called Fine Line which, I think, had some room for improvement but also some pretty good dialogue and a few puns about golf.

Early drafts and subsequent studio versions of radio plays, TV series, films, plays, poems, short stories, ideas... Everything.

And I've no idea where the little black box is.  It doesn't usually stray too far from my laptop; either it's down the side of the chair, or nestled in a pocket of my laptop bag.  For a while it was on top of a bookshelf, but it's not there any more.  I know.  I've been back to check about 34 times.  The trouble is that's the last place I can clearly remember seeing it.  And I know I've used it since then, but I can't remember where I plugged it into my laptop, and what I did with it when I'd finished working.  I mean I've never HAD to remember this stuff before.

Oh well.  So far I am being remarkably sanguine about the whole thing.  At the moment the prospect of rewriting all of this stuff doesn't feel like the big deal I know it is.  I think I am in denial.

Wait until I attempt to reproduce any of the many many documents I have lost.  Then we'll see how calm and collected I am about the transient nature of my WD SmartWare Passport...

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