Terrible news. My supernatural demon slayers sequel file died... The 70 percent edited version. I'm such a fool for putting so much faith in a closed someone, who was unsympathetic because they yelled at me for forking out the money (few hundreds) to buy the original Microsoft license product. Well, the IT guy called his Microsoft engineer and said that my license expired 2 months ago, even though I have bought a license online because I blindly trusted them who bought it for rm12....online. This just shows I should just follow my gut and buy original things especially for Microsoft, because do you really want it to happen again? Do you want my whole file to die off again, especially when I got stuff lined up to tackle ? Anyway, I managed to save a complete unedited, raw, copy (500+ pages) in my external drive but I'll have to start all over again for editing. Most likely I'm going to put it out for free because it won't be as good as the original.
This is also a good lesson for me to stop blindly trusting someone because as someone who writes as a side income freelancer, I cannot afford to lose any of my manuscripts. 8 years worth of writing, nearly 700 pages, all gone down the drain, just like that. My file died on Sunday at the crack of dawn (5.48 am to be exact) due that my lappy was undergoing an update, and I foolishly thought, "Oh, my file should be saved because I store it on OneDrive (been doing it for many years), and it's auto-saved." How wrong I was, the whole file was corrupted beyond repair. I tried everything the internet mentioned, retrieve it manually through text recovery, manual converter, open and repair, inserting some thingamajingy to refresh my whole system. You name it, I done it. I even asked the IT expert and the Microsoft Engineer if I paid for the OneDrive, will I be able to retrieve it back. They told me gently even if I paid for it now, I won't be able to retrieve the file anymore because the data has been corrupted, in other words, died. They told me I have to accept the fact that my baby (cliché, I know) of 8 years is gone.
I'm not going to lie, I cried every day since it happened. I kept thinking if only I had been more careful. In other words, I'm going to have to change up my routine of 13 years because I do not want a second time to happen. I don't think I can cope a second time.
Usual routine: 1)Write one chapter each in new file. (Editing as I go)
2) Compile all into one manuscript (New file again)
3) Edit (Saving every six months into external drive)
4) Final checks, edit, save
5) Final, final run through and publish
Number 3 is going to have to be save everywhere, every minute, every hour.
Don't tell me to relax and get over it, because it's too raw for me. One of a writer's biggest fear is losing a whole manuscript, especially one that is about to be completed. No wonder why I have seen writers and manga-kas throwing in the towel when their entire story goes missing, but I'm trying not to, since I got a raw manuscript in my hand, I'm going to try and edit it once more, but as mentioned, it won't be as good as the original, so I'll most likely be giving five-fingers discount (It definitely won't be in Amazon, because till this day, they refused to allow me to put things for free, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it), because it wouldn't seem fair to ask people to pay.
Sorry for disappointing everyone.
PS: Next time I'm getting a new lappy or something, I'm going to make sure someone installs a fully licensed Microsoft product into it. Take my money, I just don't want the same fate happen to my other manuscripts.
PSS: Someone told me to write my other manuscripts, I tried. I couldn't. I am crying too hard to even think straight, not to mention I'm not how I once was, able to juggle many projects at once (due to demanding workload and because it was taking a toll on my mental health, especially the last major novel I worked on because I was spending sleepless nights to get the story done before the deadline), because this manuscript is something I have been working on for years, and it's the conclusion to my Supernatural series, which means I may not be writing it anymore (Who knows? Lloyd and I have been together since early 2008. I say it's high time he deserves a break...)
