Novel Update #11 – Accidentally Deleted My Manuscript

That time I accidentally deleted my manuscript…

It’s been a really crazy month! For Thanksgiving I treated myself to this super-awesome writing software called Scrivener, because all the cool kids in my writing group use it. But here’s the thing.

I’m not good with technology.

Like, not even a little bit. I think the reason why I read so many books is because I don’t know how to work the remote control.

Anyway, I bought the software, watched some YouTube videos and figured out how to upload the manuscript. The software does have some effective features that combines word processing with Excel spreadsheets (I guess it’s an old school Access database). I did all my updates and tracked my word count and added keywords and color coded each chapter by the point of view character. Things were going great. Until… I went to print… I don’t know what I pressed but somehow I deleted every single chapter, folder, file, shoot I even deleted my trash folder. There was a brief moment of chaos where I screamed “No!” but in slow motion. Fortunately, I had a ten-day old draft saved in Word, so I was able to recreate everything, but it left me shaken not stirred.

My fifteen-year-old came home from school and found it in three seconds.

Then I vowed to do everything in MS Word until I can take a Scrivener class or time travel and become fifteen again.

Here’s my Goal Check-in:

(It’s for November and December):

#1 – Status: Completed editing ship scenes.

#2 – Status: Completed integrating witch themes.

#3 – Status: Better late than never.

The whole deleting-my-entire-manuscript-thing delayed me, but I got everything completed and sent to my beta readers by December 16 and already got two feedback forms back. Yay!

This gives me a little time to incorporate their feedback into my draft before sending it to the line-editor on January 9. From there I have make it as clean as possible so I can start submitting it for agent query letters in March.

I speak with my writing mentor, David Loy, once a month and he pointed out that I’m a bit of a perfectionist. He asked me to define when I knew the draft manuscript would be done (so I don’t keep editing it.) This is what I came up with:

The book is done when my characters are 100% authentic, all themes merge, and the settings are vivid and fluid. I’m not sure that I’ll ever reach the 100% mark, but my motto is to aim for the stars and even if you don’t reach them, you’ll still land on Cloud 9.

Hope you have a happy, healthy holiday season and see you in the new year!

Lisa 😉

 

Here’s my memoir:

 

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