Its Lost!

Emma B

Oh my god my world has come to an end!

Most of you are aware of how much writing I managed to get done last week. Well disaster has struck!

I have lost the memory stick containing the entire contents of my 60k plus word novel! The last time I backed it up was last week!!

Argh I am so stupid!

I'm sure it'll turn up....

bochok

Hope it turns up soon, Emma!

Emma B

I do too. My thoughts are TRY to be calm, progress from where I was. If it doesn't turn up I'll just have to redo the missing chapters. :-(

Fingers-crossed it'll turn up.

P.S. I will be backing up ALL the time now!!

Jay Mandal

I'm showing my ignorance here, but won't anything be on a computer/laptop somewhere?

TS Lawrence had to re-write The Seven Pillars of Wisdom as the manuscript was lost - and that's about 700 pages long.

Hope you find it soon.

Emma B

I have a back up on the laptop but only up until the 28th March (ish) and I did a considerable amount of work after then. I've posted another thread seeing if any computer savy people can assist. I just hope it turns up.

Emma B

I am soooooo stupid

TaffetaPunk

Jay, if all of it's on a USB memory stick, it needn't necessarily be backed up anywhere else. I use one all the time for back-up, and having lost one myself (thankfully nothing drastic on it that hadn't been backed up elsewhere) I know how soul-destroying it is. I'm sure mine was whipped from me, as it was one that had the top on the keyring and the USB itself attached (Emma will understand). The next time, I got one where the USB was attached to the keyring and the top was separate. Now that one's stopped working, though, and I have one that just twists round and doesn't have a top as such at all.

Emma, if it teaches you nothing else, it's to back up/back up/back up all the time. I know how you're feeling right now, believe me, it made me feel physically sick when I realised I'd lost mine.

Stirling

Deja Vu!

I've just done the same thing. I save my essays on the same USB that contains my novel. Well, I came to upload them on to the Uni website (which runs it through their plaguarism software), but as I got on the bus I realised I no longer had it. Cue one round trip back from town, and I found it in the Computer Lab.

I'm sure it will turn up. Where did you have it last?

flyingtart

Commiserations, Emma. :-) But there's only a few places it can logically be, surely? Have you tried all of them...?

Carol

Start trying to remember your movements after you last used it, and work from there.

Jenny

Emma - Go somewhere quiet, sit down and think of when you last saw the memory stick. Then mentally move yourself forward in time.

Stan2

Oh Emma! I feel for you!

boredrobots

Ah bum monkeys, that’s no good EmBee. It will turn up somewhere; I’m always losing mine, having a mild heart attack and then finding it again. Trouble is as soon as I find it, i breathe a sigh of relief, turn round and it’s lost again!

summernight

Well, maybe the answer is long writing... I know it's old fashioned and takes ages but...it's safe, providing you don't lose the paper you're writing on, of course

RichardS

Sorry to hear about than Emma. I really hope you find it.

Technology can be great but it can also be a bummer when something goes wrong.

Jenny

I've only just noticed I paraphrased Carol's advice. Memo to self: read more slowly and taken in what you read!

Carol

Always good to know that an opinion is agreed with. :)

davaaris

Emma. Sorry to hear about your lost memory stick. How is the search going?

Emma B

Er... its not really going anywhere. I did have the joy of finding the missing cap though (pointless!). At the minute I'm remaining calm and trying to think. Maybe someone will have an idea tomorrow. It just is another thing on the missing list. My fiance has literally just lost a library book, it was there hour ago!!! I saw it! Where did it go???

davaaris

I know this might sound a stupid thing to say but it's not still in the USB is it? The only reason I say that is whenever I remove mine the first thing I do is replace the top. If you have the top then possibly you've left the rest in the USB. Please ignore this suggestion if I am being too obvious.

Emma B

thank you davaaris but know its not. The cap I lost seperately last week

Jenny

Sometimes the missing item turns up when you start looking for something else.

TaffetaPunk

Hehe, what you do is, you ignore it and it'll get fed up because you're not frustrated any more, get bored with hiding and then it'll put itself somewhere really obvious so you can find it. (Sorry. Just thought I'd lighten the mood, and apologise if you're too annoyed to think it appropriate...)

Jany

Why not buy a new one? That`s guaranteed to make the old one turn up. It works with other things...

Jenny

Of course some things are beamed aboard alien spaceships so they can examine them and sometimes they return them. They've certainly pinched a rare old selection from our house!

Carol

All of those last ones work for me.

Butterfly

Oh Emma, how horrible. But I'm sure it's just been sucked in a time portal it will come back once its been used for whatever it was required for. It's always happening, but it's a shame it was something that wasn't also backed up esle where. ;)
Let us know when the portal has returned it. Oh, and remember it won't reappear where it was taken from. So keep your eyes pealed for it in the loo!!:P

Stan2

Has it gone behind the sofa cushions or even under the sofa (settee)? That's where my lost pencils/pens/coins seem to go.

Celtic C

Emma - it HAS to be somewhere - hope it turns up :)

Stan2

If you didn't take it outside the house or throw it accidentially in the rubbish bin, it has to be in the house somewhere. :(

TaffetaPunk

Know the feeling (says she, racking her brain to think where something of OH's might be - have turned our little room upside down looking for the bloody thing, but know how important it is to him - it'd be like me losing loads of writing). Has to be here somewhere.

Kangaroo

Ohh, EmmaB. I hope you can find it. Did you emai a copy to another site before this happened?

Island Girl

Oh, EB I have done this recently, too. It's really scary and more depressing that anyone realises. Fortunately for me (and UNfortunately for future potential publishers) I found my jump disk/memory stick - whatever you wish to call it.
I have now learned to back my work onto the hard drive of the computer as well. It only takes a few extra minutes but I rarely used to do it.
Have a good look in all the sections of your handbag (tip the whole thing upside down), search all the pockets of the clothes you've worn recently and cross your fingers. I'll cross mine too, and hope it turns up for you.

Neph

I'm paranoid, I dump all mine onto a memory stick and a PDA on a weekly basis, its saved on both my computer hard drive and an external hardrive I have every night, so its all there. This is of course due to past experience of losing stuff. I lost a lot of photos of my paintings, which is why I now have a huge memory stick.

Hope you both find what you have lost.

heather

I have often 'lost' black thing inside bags with black linings.

The top turned up on its own, so have faith and maybe the stick will do the same.

Jenny

Perhaps we should have a Talkback expedition to Emma's house to look for the memory stick?! :)

Stirling

. . . and the library book.

Emma B

The library book turned up yay!! Memory stick still missing :-(

I'm remaining calm, looking when I can and hoping it will just magically appear. It could have been ALOT worse!

flyingtart

That's the spirit, Emma! :-)

dorothyd

backing up, I use my hard drive, an external drive and an online site ...

TaffetaPunk

I tend to be very cheeky about backing up at certain intervals - a while ago I was at the office of some friends in a record/management company and bunged what was on my USB onto one of their computers :D Usually it's on my computer/laptop and USB key, and I usually print stuff off as an extra safety measure, even though the thought of typing it all up again is off-putting - I'd rather that than lose the whole lot.

Jay Mandal

TP, a printed version could be scanned back onto the computer, couldn't it?

Hmm. This reminds me of a thread/discussion we had about backup. Wonder if it's relevant.

Jay Mandal

I did make the following remark.

"Hmm. Since this seems to be such a common - and major - problem, you'd have thought the computer people would have come up with something."

Anyone know what they recommend?

TaffetaPunk

Jay, it would be fine if I had a scanner :) And that doesn't translate into any word-type documents, anyway, so I couldn't edit from a scan.

Jay Mandal

We put something onto our computer - I thought we were able to edit it somehow. How do publishers who say they'll scan things manage to edit work?

Stirling

One friend of mine at Uni backs her essays up as emails. I am dubious about backing up on to hard-drive, my computers have a tendency of crashing and needing new hard drives. You can't imagine how many drafts I have lost that way . . .

Stan2

You need special software that allows you to edit scanned documents such as Textbridge.

TaffetaPunk

Ah, well, I don't have either that or a scanner. Good job I back everything up, then :P

Stan2

Backing everything up is always the best option. I use my scanner and editing software a lot.

anenglishmum

What a nightmare! It wont help on this occasion, but how about putting a sticker on the USB stick with your phone no. on it? Most people are honest and would try to contact the owner if they found it. I know you always get the 'finders keepers' brigade, but I like to think the best of people! Hope it turns up soon.

Carol

One day Anthony Horowitz was on Breakfast tv, and the presenter asked about his next novel. He produced his USB stick on a cord around his neck. I got the impression it was only taken off to do work. :)