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When you lose a story you're sure was good
I think it was good but now I can't find it and my brain doesn't want to work to recreate it. Very annoying.
I started being organised and putting everything into a file to avoid this type of thing in future.
Comments
I have a folder for every project, named. And as I do poems, that is a lot of folders - although sometimes it's lots of poems for one book, or for one letter asking for poems.
Plus I can search - can your computer do a search? I put in a phrase I know was in it or a name, or try a few names it could have been.
When data is deleted it's usually still there - deleting it just tells the computer to act like it isn't there. Sort of like having a video tape of Casualty...when you're ready to get rid of that recording you wouldn't delete the data, you'd scribble out 'Casualty' from the label and know you could record over it next time you wanted to create data.
I discovered that when you delete something off a memory stick in Windows 10 it just disappears, and doesn't go in the recycle bin...
I have a few folders with started and unfinished novels and stories. Sadly very few stories that are actually finished (I don't want to even admit to the number) I'm determined to finish and polish them I always get stuck in the rewriting stage, I did a short story course and I've read a lot of books but they never give you much about rewriting and I need to stick at it and finish
Don't know if this might help, but take one of your (many) unfinished stories, sit down and pad the hell out of it: good stuff, drivel and crap. Quite often a few gems will spill out and ignite the spark.
I sometimes have what I call a five-fifteen-fury (and no, it's nothing to do with sex); I set my clock for 5.15 am (but could be any time) and write maybe 1,000 words straight off the top of my head. Could be about a block of chocolate, could be about a silver robot standing bored in the foyer of Writing Magazine; the point is we splurge out rapid-fire all we can. If we use only 10%, we are miles ahead.
It's a bit like the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. Out of the dozen or so kids, eleven might be real terrors, but one would always stand head and shoulders above the rest.
(sorry, I'm not good at those analogy things)
That's some good advice. I do find little gems of ideas sometimes (I have read through the old stuff but not recently) but I'm not very good at rewriting, I think I've spent more time writing over the years than rewriting, hence why I have no finished stories to send out. Confidence, business, procrastination call it what you will I'm working on some of those stories now. One story has been worked to death though it has lost the spark I had in the 1st draft.
I trying to work on a few stories at the moment and finish them before I write anything new. Which is a pain as I want to write new stuff but I guess that's the reward at the end of all the hard work. Just looked at one story now, rewriting mostly and I'll keep plugging on rewriting, reworking until I get these stories done.
In saying that, I wonder what other TBers might think? Might we see a link to our special 'Exchange Bin'?