I had a moment of panic a few days ago.
EPIC MOMENT OF DESPAIR.
I went into Scrivener to find the work I did for NaNoWriMo in November, and guess what?
It’s gone. I have three versions I started, and none of them contain more than five chapters. My brain melted. I may have called Scrivener some unflattering things (and we’re usually SUCH good buddies).
In short, I was pissed.
The good news is that I’d done a compile in PDF format, so I can read it over in Acrobat and make notes. The bad news is that I can’t copy and paste that into Scrivener, because the formatting just doesn’t work. But hey, I’ll take what I can get. And the read-over could be worse. I already have pages of notes, but I’m getting everything on to index cards and working out problems and trying to figure out exactly how much I have to know about mer anatomy for this one if Kel is going to… Well. Whatever. It’ll work out.
Today, five (rough, sorry) paragraphs that I’m just reading over now, plus one bonus line because I love Aren. This is from Torn, the sequel to Bound (which I usually share from). Aren has taken off on a cross-country journey to try to find his father, who disappeared more than three years ago. He’s already had a few shocks and some major difficulties, because why would I make things easy for him? But he has a promising lead…
–
There were no dragons in those first days, and no towns or
roadside inns.We travelled for two days and nights. I let the horse forage
where he could, and did my hunting as an eagle when there was
game nearby. I slept in that body, too, forced by the
frigid night winds to take whatever form would keep me from
freezing.The morning of the third day brought us to the shore of a
large lake of uneven shape, with bays and inlets hiding much of
the shore from view. Clouds reflected on the wind-ruffled
surface, but otherwise the space seemed peaceful. The grass-covered shores sloped toward the water, dotted with low shrubs. I removed my things from the saddle and let the horse loose.“It seems the dragon infestation claims are overblown,” I
said to the horse. He looked up, twitched an ear, and went back
to eating. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the stories about
dragons were exaggerated to keep us southerners away. Though
Tyrea was united as one country, the outer provinces often
seemed to resent us, perhaps forgetting what life had been like
before my father’s rule.A flash of movement caught my eye, and I spun around in
time to see my horse pulled into the water, his neck caught in
the jaws of a massive black water dragon. The dragon stayed near
the surface, watching me from eyes placed high atop its head as
the horse thrashed, then stilled. A moment later, both shapes
disappeared into the depths of the lake, leaving only
reflections to hide what hid below the surface.“Well, shit.”
–
For more WIPpety goodness, swing on by the very busy KL Schwengel’s blog, say hi, and click on the linkie in the upper right. SO MUCH WIPPET.
ROW80 Update
See above for EPIC MOMENT OF PANIC. Not much else to report, really. Had I finished that read-through of Bound when I last checked in? Well, I have now. I’ve done what I can. Still waiting to hear that Mister Editor is ready for me to catapult that on over. Reading through Torn now, obviously, and then I’ll get back to work on that or the vampires. Torn should probably take precedence (what with the need for getting sequels out quickly and all), but we’ll see what happens.
Well, I’m off to take the dog for a walk. It might not last long. It’s -16 C here, with the wind chill around -30 (-22 F to you American types). TOO DURN COLD. But I do feel a lot better when I get out for walks, even if I can’t feel my legs by the time I get back, and I might need to drop Jack back at home half-way through.
Boxers aren’t built for winter.
Pictured: Not winter
I’m trying some other health-related stuff that’s working out well, but we’ll save that for another post.
I hope you’re all having a good week, wherever you are and no matter how cold it is. Let me know what you’re up to…
disregard the prologue 
March 5th, 2014 at 1:04 pm
I hate when writing disappears. Good thing you had a backup.
March 5th, 2014 at 5:06 pm
I’ve been obsessive about backing up for years, since the last big disaster. I really should e-mail the Scrivener files to myself, though.
March 5th, 2014 at 5:15 pm
That reminds me that I should back my stuff up.
March 5th, 2014 at 1:12 pm
Reading your epic moment of despair made me physically ill. I’m glad you have that pdf. Ugh!!! As Charles said, I hate when that happens. I lost a book and a screenplay due to technology issues. Thankfully for both I had a hard copy. But it’s a pain!
March 5th, 2014 at 5:06 pm
It IS a pain! Glad you had yours printed out, though. I wish we had a working printer so I could work from a hard copy of this one.
March 5th, 2014 at 2:43 pm
‘Well shit’ indeed! So much for the dragon claims being overblown! Great excerpt Kate, with some lovely imagery about the surrounding countryside. 🙂
March 5th, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Thanks!
March 5th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
I had a similar Scrivener-themed Epic Moment of Despair about a month ago–lost an entire chapter. But Scrivener backs up automatically, so I found it, filed strangely in the recesses of Scrivener’s backup files.
I love this scene, though I feel terrible for the poor horse. I think Aren’s reaction is a lot milder than mine would have been!
March 5th, 2014 at 7:33 pm
I can’t imagine how upset I would be if I lost most of a project. There would be crying and rending of garments.
I love the opening line of your snippet!
March 5th, 2014 at 8:22 pm
I guess you don’t want to here that it’s supposed to be 80 degrees here in a couple of days. Gotta love Southern California.
OMG I would have a FREAK ATTACK if I lost my writing. *pets you consolingly*
Way cool scene. I like the water dragon though I sympathize with the horsie. Seems like an intriguing story!
March 5th, 2014 at 8:36 pm
“Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist.”
(sorry about the lost file by the way. What a pain)
March 5th, 2014 at 8:55 pm
Loved the descriptions of the scenery and the dragon. It was really enagaing and helped paint a vivid picture of the scene. As for your moment of panic, lucky you had it backed up! 🙂
March 5th, 2014 at 9:14 pm
Well, poop, indeed. So, does this shape-shifter have any plans for dealing with dragons?
March 5th, 2014 at 9:17 pm
If he’s smart, he’ll avoid them…
March 6th, 2014 at 2:39 am
Let’s hope he’s not very smart, then. 😉
March 6th, 2014 at 11:20 am
He’s smart, but he and the people he’s about to run into might not know as much about dragons as they think they do…
March 6th, 2014 at 5:36 pm
Oh good. *grins wickedly* Let the fireworks begin. *settles back comfortably with a bag of popcorn*
March 6th, 2014 at 5:38 pm
You have no idea how right you literally are. GET OUT OF MY HEAD.
And PASS THAT POPCORN.
March 6th, 2014 at 5:43 pm
Are you sure you want some of my popcorn? I’m using olive oil instead of butter. I have some brownies here, though. Want some of those?
March 6th, 2014 at 5:57 pm
Olive oil is good. But then, brownies… Yes. Yes to all of it.
*waits for dragons*
March 6th, 2014 at 8:41 pm
*passes brownies and popcorn*
March 6th, 2014 at 12:32 am
So sorry about Scrivener misbehaving. I must admit I find the inverse formatting hard work too. Glad you still had a copy.
Loved your WIPpet (and the extra line made it). I started worrying for that horse the minute he doubted the dragons were around…
March 6th, 2014 at 3:16 pm
That last line was gold, Kate.
I don’t know if you’ve got Scrivener doing automatic backups (the default is to save a lot, but the zipfile backups need to be turned on in the options). However, there still should be a copy on your machine somewhere. It might take some searching for it… but I bet it’s there. Might be worth digging in the electronic ether than trying to reconstruct pieces otherwise.
March 6th, 2014 at 4:04 pm
I just found it! Long story, and I don’t know what happened otherwise, but I found a dropbox back-up that the computer couldn’t find. WHEW!
March 6th, 2014 at 4:11 pm
WOOT!
(Yeah, Dropbox did that to me once too. Did you know that they keep a backup of most files loaded to their storage for about 3 weeks to a month even after deletion of the original file?)
March 7th, 2014 at 9:59 am
At least Aren took his stuff off first! See what happens when you don’t listen to the locals? 😉
That’s seriously too cold. I go hang around outside in weather like that waiting for my son (I still don’t trust him coming home without getting hit by a car). I’m waiting for the snow/ice to melt before I go on walks. In the meanwhile, I just climb my stairs for 10-20 minutes (depends if I did yoga or lifted weights). I’m looking forward to you sharing those healthy things you are doing.
March 8th, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Argh! I would have cried if that had happened to me on any program with any of my stories! I’m so glad you had a PDF you could go back to!
Beautiful descriptions in the snippet – though I think Aren may have jinxed himself with that comment about the dragons being exaggerated 🙂
March 10th, 2014 at 7:46 am
*You* killed a horse. I guess i should be grateful it wasn’t Aren who wound up being the horse’s breakfast. My only nit (yes, I know, it’s a rough rough rough draft) is your use of ‘us’ in the beginning. I wondered who the other person was, and why Aren would leave them to freeze when he fluffed up in his eagle form. Then I realized it was the horse. Just struck me as odd to use ‘us’.
I’m glad you had a back-up to work from. I hate losing work and it’s happened often enough. Makes me sick every time. Argh.
March 10th, 2014 at 7:49 am
I don’t care if you kill a horse. I care if you kill The Horse. There’s a difference. 🙂
March 10th, 2014 at 7:52 am
;p