A fellow writer on Twitter posted about his computer updating and losing his 10,000+ word manuscript with no hope of finding it. It hit me right in the core. It’s something that’s probably happened to all of us, whether we’re writing our first novel or working on a report for school or work. We use all the methods we searched for to recover it with no success and sit downtrodden and question whether our endeavors to write were really meant to be. Am I really meant to be a writer if something I spent hours on could disappear so easily? God forbid it was a project you were devastatingly passionate about. Well, I want to share the story of the story that almost made me quit writing for good.
I got accepted into a boarding school that preps you for college. You stay on campus during your junior and senior year and one of the things I needed was a laptop. My mom got me a used one from a friend of hers until she could save up to get me a new one of my own.
It was a huge transition. Being as asocial as I am, it was difficult being in a new city and living arrangement with different people, but I actually adjusted pretty well. I made friends, kept my grades up, and even took thoughts about my future seriously. Secretly, I was considering being an English major to become an author. During my free time, I would write stories but struggled to finish them which made me question my choice. My friends encouraged me to keep going, and one day, I was struck by an idea that I was determined to finish. After finishing my homework, I’d add a few words to it, discuss plot points with friends in the dorms, edit it during class. I wanted to have it finished by Thanksgiving break, to edit and re-work the kinks during the week-long break, so I put in extra time by staying up after curfew. The week before break, I spent the day writing the end that for a while had seemed so elusive to me. I told my friends that I had finished and would show the final product after the break. The day before I leave for break, I go to turn on my laptop only for the screen to stay black. It refused to turn on. I make sure the computer was plugged in and still, nothing happened. Once I got home, we tried to get it to work. My mom got it a new battery, called the friend she bought it from, and nothing. My mom told me not to worry, she had been planning to get me a new laptop for Christmas for doing so well in school. I’d just have to borrow my uncle’s for the next few weeks. Since she hadn’t known what I went through with my story, she couldn’t understand why I was so upset. I forced myself to get over it. There would be more stories, right?
I didn’t write for months, I convinced myself that I was just busy being a teen. Then summer break came and I just wanted to relax after all the schoolwork. My final year in high school arrived and I needed to focus on getting into college. The half-assed attempts at new stories ended up as deleted word documents and solidified that writing just wasn’t for me, so I decided on another major that would offer better job security. I went to school first for psychology then changed it to biology, ignoring the fact that my favorite class was American literature. Then some things happened that are a whole other story of its own.
Looking back at it, the story itself wasn’t anything special. A woman who kills her ex in self-defense falls for the detective who’s investigating her case, only for him to determine that she’s been killing men and staging them as attacks. A generic story with an obvious twist. But it was mine. 20,000+ words of my version of a narrative that I completed and loved. I was so proud. It wasn’t until college that I got back into writing, but it served as a distraction from my depression. Still, it took a few years until now where I am now actively trying to make it a career. It took almost a decade for the passion to completely come back, and on rare days I look back on that and wonder where my life would be if I didn’t lose it. Mainly, I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t give up when I did. I don’t dwell too often anymore. If any of the bumps along this road of me becoming an author has shown me is that there are stories within me and despite my efforts, they will be told. I should thank them for not giving up on me.
Pour one out the stories we lost, and toast the better ones they made room for. Happy Writing.
Leave a Reply