It’s been a crazy week. I’ve had a major crisis on my journey to publish Neverland Academy. Okay, maybe not major, but still a crisis nonetheless. Is it a sign from the universe telling me not to publish it? That it’s not good enough? That I should stop writing?
Last week, I was having some electrical work done at my house and the power was out for the day. So I took my laptop over to my parents’ house to get some work done there. When I left I slipped my USB flash drive into my laptop case and dashed out into the pouring rain to get to my car. Three hours later, I realized it was missing. I retraced my steps and found it lying in my parents’ driveway. It was still in one piece, but scratched on one side. I assume I must have run over it.
Since it had gotten wet, I decided to let it air out for a few days before trying to plug it in. I left it out for five days and was excited to try it yesterday. I just knew it would still work. Boy, was I wrong. Though it still lights up, my computer cannot read it. I did a frantic internet search and downloaded half a dozen file recovery programs, but with no luck. Unfortunately, my only final copy of Neverland Academy was on that drive.
The situation is not hopeless, however. I’m terribly disorganized and constantly forget to back up files, so while I was writing I often emailed saved drafts to myself. I was able to recover the first final draft via my email. And I also have a MOBI file of the most recent draft. In addition, I have the printed proof that I ordered before this mess started. Now, I’m not sure which is the best method to fix my blunder. Either way, I’ll have to reformat the entire document twice, once for ebooks and once for the paperback. I’m thinking I will probably convert the MOBI file to RTF since I’ll only have to reformat, rather than rewrite. Whatever the universe is trying to tell me, I’m not going to back down. Call me stubborn if you like, but I didn’t do all this work for nothing!
I’ve got a busy week ahead of me.
