The Seven Stages Of Grief...Failure To Back-Up Data Edition

Because most of us work on computers, there's a good chance it's happened to you, that moment you realize that information you thought was safe and secure is gone. 

It's when the seven stages of "failure to back-up your data" grief begin. Stage 1 hit me pretty hard.

SHOCK AND/OR DISBELIEF

I was given an assignment to edit an audiobook. I even blogged about the joy I felt when I finished the project. Turns out, the program we used to edit the audiobook requires that you save two things. I only saved one and you can't recover the data without having save both things. That's when Stage 2 kicked in.

DENIAL

Oh, how I wanted it to not be true. In fact, I kept telling myself it couldn't be true. It wasn't until I watched a YouTube video about people having similar issues that I finally had to face the fact of what I had done. If only I had watched that video before I hit "Delete," all that work would have been saved. That made me mad and ushered me to stage 3.

ANGER

Pretty self-explanatory. Then came Stage 4.

BARGAINING

I couldn't really do much with this one--I'm not sure how much capital I had. I mean, who am I going to bargain with? It wasn't like Doctor Who could show up, transport me back to a few days in the past. Stage 5 was next.

GUILT

This one, well...yeah, I felt it. I especially felt bad because I had taken longer on the project than I had anticipated. I thought it would be easier than it turned out to be. And now, it would take even longer. Stages 1 - 5 prepared me for Stage 6.

DEPRESSION

I'm usually a happy person so this one wasn't too bad. I mean, considering all the bad things that happen to people, this was generally mild. Still, though...

Finally, it was time for Stage 7.

ACCEPTANCE AND HOPE

Turns out, not all was lost. I backed-up my hard drive after I edited a quarter of the book so I was able to recover that. And, after originally editing that 25%, the rest of the book went much faster. Once I realized it'd just have to do it again, it sucked, but there was some comfort in that.

I had hoped to get working on a story I've let sit for years. I was excited to jump in with both feet. I guess that will have to wait, at least for a little while.