This Too Shall Pass

I've been a little non-existant these days. And for that I apologize. Life has been a bit of a whirlwind, full of happiness and frustration all at the same time. I guess in some ways I have lost a little bit of a desire to write. But don't worry. It's coming back.

It all started a couple of weeks ago. In my preparation to return my leased car and take the plunge into the world of purchasing a vehicle that has already depreciated in value, I lost something that was my life. My whole world saved on a little piece of plastic, vanished in an instant of confusion and hair-pulling frustration.

The day itself is not worth re-enacting but let's just say, nothing, and I mean nothing, went the way it should have the day that I was returning my car. Extra driving, carelessness, tiredness and shear frustration and anxiety caused that little contraption called a flash drive to fall from my pocket and be lost forever. I am still holding out hope that it's in the house somewhere. Hidden so well that I will never find it until the day we decide to move.

All of the writing I have ever done over the past 10 years, gone. Just like that. For most of you this would probably be no big deal because normal people would have had everything backed up somewhere else. So really it is my own fault that it wasn't backed up. But there is a reasoning behind that as well. In five years I have never lost that stick. Yes, it's been misplaced but it has always been recovered.  And I kept telling myself I needed to back it up but I just never got around to it. Again, totally  my fault. A few months ago my laptop contracted a virus so I had my reservations about having any of my writing or anything else of importance on the computer itself. My other flash drive was full of pictures that luckily was saved from when the computer got sick and of course I hadn't tranferred those to a CD yet so there was no room to back up the writing on that drive and I really didn't want it on my computer. Even though now, it really wouldn't have hurt to just to put in on the computer.

Invoices for the last couple of years are gone. And...probably the most painful, all of my novel that I have been so painstakingly working on for the last 7 months. I wanted to cry but I also knew it was my own fault for not being more diligent and proactive and I kept holding on to the hope that it would turn up. I tried to laugh at myself but it didn't make me feel any better.

On the positive side, I have been taking a novel class since January and everything that I had submitted over the past few months, thankfully was still saved onto some of my classmates computers. So I have gotten bits and pieces back. But a lot of it is bits and pieces that I have changed again and again over the past months. So not much is as it was. Meaning of course that I have the dreadful task ahead of me of re-creating everything. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's the opportunity I needed to really get the novel the way it was supposed to be, but when I think about how much I have to re-write, I really just want to curl up in the closet and beat my head against the wall. Maybe add a few drinks to that too and I can slobber along with it. After all, isn't that writer do?

All I can really say is that once I get past this frustration and stop kicking myself for being so stupid and do re-write everything, it will be incredibly satisfying for that book to get published. Just knowing all that I had to go through to get it to that point. Might even be a good opening at my book launch.

On the most positive note of all, I am really enjoying the brand new Jeep Patriot. Depreciation and all.

Now I must write.