Have you ever…?

[EmilyMiller]

I’m such a klutz

I was writing last night, my bf was kind enough to make us tacos; a Friday indulgence.

Anyway, I put in maybe 45 - 60 mins into it. And then I managed to delete the whole thing. And I have a new phone and undo is different. So I screwed that up. Then I think Word has auto save on. But the last save is just the first new paragraph and a half. And now I figure out undo. But I’ve restored the old version, so that won’t work.

Ended up having to re-write it. And I have this horrible nagging feeling that I had better turns of phrase the first time. That I’m forgetting things I added when I first wrote it.

So frustrating.

Did something similar ever happen to you?

Em

 

[TxRad]

Oh yeah, been there done that. Several times over the years.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

Frustrating but I find if I lose something like that, the second effort is usually better!

Just hope the tacos were good.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Just hope the tacos were good.

They were particularly good for some reason. Just the normal Old Elpaso packet.

Em

 

[Djmac1031]

That really does duck.

My suggestion; just take your time rewriting. Maybe some of what you missed will come back to you.

 

[Treeview]

Ihave my auto save set to a pretty short interval.

Did you learn how to undo deletes now?

 

[AG31]

I’m such a klutz

I was writing last night, my bf was kind enough to make us tacos; a Friday indulgence.

Anyway, I put in maybe 45 - 60 mins into it. And then I managed to delete the whole thing. And I have a new phone and undo is different. So I screwed that up. Then I think Word has auto save on. But the last save is just the first new paragraph and a half. And now I figure out undo. But I’ve restored the old version, so that won’t work.

Ended up having to re-write it. And I have this horrible nagging feeling that I had better turns of phrase the first time. That I’m forgetting things I added when I first wrote it.

So frustrating.

Did something similar ever happen to you?

Em

Too often to count. The step wise, "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!!!"

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yes. I lost most of the Halloween story I was working on last year. That when I learned that the Cloud is your friend.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

That really does duck.

Quack?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I haven't lost a file in years - I admit to paranoia having grown up in the floppy disk era - so I have backups everywhere. I email what I type on my phone to myself regularly.

Of course the problem is sometimes editing the wrong file, or even the right file in the wrong place, so I have a story I thought was ready to post only I rewrote the last 500 words twice, in two different ways, and now have to merge the conversations and actions together into one. Which rather requires sitting up at an actual computer so I can see what I'm doing.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Ihave my auto save set to a pretty short interval.

Did you learn how to undo deletes now?

I use Word on my phone. Not sure how to configure it.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

Ihave my auto save set to a pretty short interval.

Did you learn how to undo deletes now?

Yeah - it changed.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

I haven't lost a file in years - I admit to paranoia having grown up in the floppy disk era - so I have backups everywhere. I email what I type on my phone to myself regularly.

Didn’t lose the whole thing, just my new work. Maybe 500 words.

Of course the problem is sometimes editing the wrong file, or even the right file in the wrong place, so I have a story I thought was ready to post only I rewrote the last 500 words twice, in two different ways, and now have to merge the conversations and actions together into one. Which rather requires sitting up at an actual computer so I can see what I'm doing.

That sounds super complicated.

Em

 

[Deleted member 6666935]

I had something similar happen with the story I’m currently working on. My computer restarted and when it did, it didn’t bring what I’d written back. I did manage to find the temporary file and recovered most of it except for the last sex scene I’d written most of. I hope what I wrote in its place was as good or better, but I won’t know for sure.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I had a corrupted file a while back 50k word project I scrapped and rewrote. 20k into the rewrite and my file got corrupted. I managed to get the corrupted file open in a viewer but had to retype all 20k words into a new file. Saved that file like 5 different ways and in different places.

I have also had programs crash on me before, losing hours of work, resulting in many tears.

Mass deletion of a block of text has happened by I've thankfully been able to recover those as I primarily work on my laptop.

Retyping 20k words - wow! That’s dedication.

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

Yes. I lost most of the Halloween story I was working on last year. That when I learned that the Cloud is your friend.

I save mine to One Drive - but I don’t know how to adjust the frequency in iOS.

Em

 

[Djmac1031]

Quack?

Ducking Auto correct

 

[MrPixel]

Well, your experience just makes me think about my travails summer before last when I was trying to seriously write on C's iPad. I hate it when software engineers think they're smarter than you and code all sorts of incorrect assumptions into the app that you have to delete or otherwise undo. Autocorrect is the classic example, of course. I found that correcting the autocorrect frequently resulted in damaging and having to redo work already done.

But, yeah, I've been on the receiving end of several of C's whines when a wayward finger or thumb select-swiped and she lost an hour's worth of typing. It's all about "gestures" on Apple devices, at least. Here, Apple - I have a "gesture" for you!

 

[BobbyLaker]

I save mine to One Drive - but I don’t know how to adjust the frequency in iOS.

Em

Does this help @EmilyMiller ?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-my-work/f57fdfb6-c77f-460d-9185-0b0bf20af7ef

 

[EmilyMiller]

Does this help @EmilyMiller ?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-my-work/f57fdfb6-c77f-460d-9185-0b0bf20af7ef

Thanks - but that doesn’t say how to set the frequency of auto save on iOS Word. At least I don’t think so .

Em

 

[Codoc24]

My worst loss was not writing a story. Several years ago I had just finished doing my taxes and was almost to the point to hit "SEND" to send the form to the IRS and my hard drive picked that moment to crash. So I had to buy and install a new hard drive, reload the O/S, reload the tax software and then do my taxes all over again. In the U.S., tax day is April 15th (generally) and this happened on the 13th. grrrrrr

 

[Bamagan]

Ducking Auto correct

The ironic rise of the word 'ducking.'

 

[ElectricBlue]

Been there, done that. I always cope by saying, "Well, it probably wasn't the best writing anyway, and if the idea was any good, the next draft will be much better."

 

[EmilyMiller]

Been there, done that. I always cope by saying, "Well, it probably wasn't the best writing anyway, and if the idea was any good, the next draft will be much better."

I’ve [eventually] remembered like three things I put into the original and forgot in the re-write.

Em

 

[Devinter]

Not when it comes to fiction writing, but a few years ago when I was still in school, I was working on a project for at least a couple of weeks when suddenly lightning strikes my house and my PC gets fried like Santa's butt going down the wrong chimney. That was heartbreaking.

Thankfully, I managed to rush out and buy a brand new PC within 24 hours or so, and then opened up the old one and took out the hard drive - and to my great luck, it was still functional enough that I could transfer the project over to the new machine. So in the end I didn't lose more than maybe half an hour's work since my last save. I got a proper surge protector the next day.

... I still find thunder to be quite sexy, but not as much as I used to.