I have some bad news. There was a problem with my file.
A few days after I posted last month’s blog update, something stupid and annoying and depressing happened. My word doc was overwritten with a previous version, deleting chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and what I had written for 7 up to that point. Luckily, I was able to recover the vast majority of what was gone, but I still lost everything I had written in chapter 7 which was a little over 2,000 words.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m super grateful I only lost 2,000 words instead of the 22,000 words I initially thought I had lost. Even so, it was incredibly discouraging. 2,000 words may not seem like a lot, but it had taken me several hours to write that because it was somewhat technical and required research and careful, precise writing.
Needless to say, I took a break from writing. It also didn’t help that work got a little nuts. On average, I take maybe one business trip a year. I took two in July alone. That, combined with some family stuff and losing 2,000 words of the story meant I am officially in the negative territory for the month. I was able to write a little bit (about 500 words), but that means I’m still at -1,500 for the month sitting at a total of 32,500.
Obviously, that means there isn’t really much of a plot update for this month, so I’ll keep this blog post short and sweet. My goal is to get back into the groove of writing again and get chapter 7 done. Here’s to hoping August can calm down and that I can avoid any major disasters.