Dreams Destroyed

[AiritheDestoyer]

So, I want to a novelist. For the past few months I've been working on a story that involves vampires and demons and a vampiric/human romance backstory. I am writing it on the main computer because I print it from time to time because for some odd reason that is how I catch my mistakes. Well today, I go to write and mom is tearing the computer from the wall, claiming something is wrong. She asked if I had a backup of my work and when I said no she shrugged and said Oh well. So I think my story is gone forever and if they are, I'm mostly sure I will give up writing forever.

 

[Violetta]

Based on the premise, I am certain I have a Twilight joke around somewhere I could use, but that is a bit easy, eh? Just hope you do not go into "writer rage" like Jamie does when parts of his stories suddenly disappear.

 

[Journia]

Writer's Rage....I hate that.

 

[Sablesword]

[Makes backup of my docs & drawings to a thumb drive, RIGHT NOW]

 

[AiritheDestoyer]

OOOOO, I hit that earlier. grrr

 

[ElFewja]

I have about three or four back ups of my writing folder. There's the one on my main drive, a copy of that on the other drive in the pc... a copy of that on my external, and a copy on my laptop. Because, yes, if I lost all my stuff from the past 5-10 years... well, I'd probably be done.

Anyway, you say you have stuff printed out?

Also, I think that, even if the pc was destroyed, the hard drive would still be intact? I'm not sure how your mother destroyed the pc - the description doesn't make sense to me - but I imagine that your files are still there, so I wouldn't worry too much. But, could you explain more please, so that I can offer better advice?

Etc~

 

[tickleslave2002]

So, I want to a novelist. For the past few months I've been working on a story that involves vampires and demons and a vampiric/human romance backstory. I am writing it on the main computer because I print it from time to time because for some odd reason that is how I catch my mistakes. Well today, I go to write and mom is tearing the computer from the wall, claiming something is wrong. She asked if I had a backup of my work and when I said no she shrugged and said Oh well. So I think my story is gone forever and if they are, I'm mostly sure I will give up writing forever.

Your story is not gone forever until you "restore" your hard drive. The operating system might be damaged, the file allocation table might even be damaged, but the hard disk itself very likely isn't.. and text documents are very easy to recover. Unless wrote on top of by "restoring".
If you end up taking your computer in, ask them nicely to back up your My Documents or whatever directory you stored it in.. the hard drive should still function as a data drive in someone else's computer so that they can back it up. Just don't take it to best buy; they charge $100 to back up trivial amounts of data.
I would late to see you lose such an important work in progress.

 

[dalekfire]

Why'd she tear the computer from the wall?? :blink

 

[Slaver123]

Don't let it deter you! Even if you never recover the backups, those stories are your "babies"- don't give up on them.

I'm sure you can rewrite the whole thing; not word for word of course, but it'll probably be even better. Stephen King said there are no good writers, only good RE-writers.

And don't be crushed when a publisher sends a rejection letter either, cause several of them will.

 

[QueenBeeBeeMari]

There is never room for giving up
only room for trying
because the more you give up,the less you will try
the less you try,the more boring life becomes...

 

[kopfhorer1]

I had an external hard drive with a screwed-up table of contents once. There's a flavor of Linux which can prove useful for fishing out allegedly lost data. It's called Knoppix. It can be run in computers with damaged hard drives because it is a "live" CD or DVD. It boots and runs from the CD/DVD-ROM drive. It saw my files where Windows and other Linux distros saw a blank disk.

If you can afford it, I'd say that once you recover your data by whatever means, leave the family computer to mom and dad, and get yourself a used machine for your own work. Oh, and don't put iit on the web if you can avoid it. Old Pentium IV's, more than adequate for word-processing and photo-processing, are going for almost nothing these days. Just be sure to read online reviews for the machines you're considering (e.g. some old Dells have motherboard capacitor problems) and of the sellers you're considering getting them from. You might also want to consider using Linux, as it's arguably less crash-prone than Windoze. And it's free.

 

[FeatherDaemon1]

That story is always in your mind. I actually have 5 or 6 in my head at all times. That being said, I hear your pain. I have had to re-write things myself. Sometimes you do a better job the next time around. I am not just saying a bunch of feel good stuff here. The capacity of the human mind is beyond the imagination. That story is in your mind. That story is being worked on even when you are not thinking about it. So you have to re-write what you have done. It could be worse. Get to it.

(Although... it is advisable to go get a thumb drive and back up frequently.)

 

[Frost King]

Well, i don't think you should stop writing it is a shame that you lost you stories it is. but you can write more i know it seems hard since you lost your work but you can write more if you try.

 

[kopfhorer1]

Thumb drives and DVD burners are a good thing. External hard drives are too, but I prefer hard copy.

If it's any consolation, I've been a photographer since the days of the IBM 370. I've had entire rolls of film get ruined by screw-ups of one kind or another. Frustrating? Certainly. But I've kept on taking pictures to this day.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Don't thank god. Thank Science™.

 

[AngelOfDarkness]

vampires?,werewolves? romance?!? thank god your work and career as a writter is destroyed!!!

Way to be sensitive. Good job dude. :rolleyes