Thread: Utter Disaster

So, as anyone who reads this forum much knows, I've been working on my NaNo a month early. I've been blitzing all month. In addition, I've had several large essay midterms and my creative writing portfolio, twenty pages of fiction with which I am applying to the creative writing school, is due on friday. In short, I've written more this month than I have in a long, long time.
Now, I'm pretty good at backing things up. I have a flash drive that I send my documents to at the end of every month.
Now, two days ago my writing laptop broke, either the graphics card or the motherboard broke. My hard drive might still be intact, but I sent it to the place that I bought it and they said that they haven't been able to get the files off of it. This means that all of the revising that I've done to my creative writing portfolio is gone, which is the more important thing, but also, THE ENTIRETY OF MY NANO IS GONE. It's all wiped away.
Which puts me in an awkward spot. I haven't written for the past two days, so I'm already 3,000 words behind, and I'm having trouble convincing myself to do it. On my last day, even if I do finish the story and everything, I'll still only have 13,000 words. That's it, 13,000 of my 50,000 word novel. I'm having a hard time convincing myself to finish anyway. It hardly seems worth it if I dont have the first 37,145 words that I wrote

OMG that must be really frustrating - I'd be pulling my hair out!

Oh my gosh, that's horrible. I think that would make me go curl up somewhere and cry. For days.

Did they say they haven't been able to retrieve the data thus far, or that they simply can't do it?

They said that they can't do it.
My dad's pretty good at computers, so I'm driving back home tonight (I'm at college, but in the same state) and see if he can pull anything off, but I don't have too much faith.

Not sure what to do...
I've got a lot of work to do piecing my creative writing portfolio together, though. I can't decide whether to finish the novel...

Damn, Siglark, sorry about your novel. That's heartbreaking. There's still hope with your dad, though.

In which order would you place these two ideas?:

- Concentrate on the really important things, like the portfolio and school--these are your future; be proud of what you accomplished in this NaNo, but ultimately let it go.

- Dig down deep and push out those last 13k words. NaNo is ultimately an honour system project, and if you say you wrote 37k+ but only have 13k to show, so be it. You still wrote a novel in 30 days--something many people only ever talk about doing. Self-satisfaction and pride in completing a goal you set for yourself.

Whichever order you put them, you made the right choice.

No luck with my dad. I guess it is gone forever.

However, I am finishing the novel. I guess that the pride of seeing "50,000 words" on the counter will have to wait for next year. However, I'll hate myself for a year if I don't crank out the rest of it. I have to finish this thing.

Damn. I had a similar experience once...now I both print out and burn to cd, every time. Sorry you have to experience that loss though.

I sympathize deeply. I was working long, hard and fast - thus completely forgetting to save and my cat unplugged the power cord to my laptop...

I sympathize, but now you must excuse me as I must kill my cat...

Sorry to hear that Siglark. I recall the computer crash of '04 which almost set me to drinking heavily . . . and I hate alcohol. It is unnerving. The best therapy is vent . . . one keystroke at a time and get past the frustration so you can get back to the job of writing.

Writer's suffer setbacks, then they turn them into believable type for their first best novel. I see in your future you'll have a character who will experience just such a thing as this and you'll be able to project your emotions into that novel and your reader.

If all else fails . . . just consume a lot of Ho Hos and rootbeer. Works for me.

Best wishes on finishing. Don't give up.