Losing a limb...

I had my right arm cut off the other day.

 

Not literally, though it was, perchance, as painful.  I felt as if I'd lost a limb.  I felt a twist in my gut and a pull in my heart.

 

No, I hadn't lost my phone.  I can see why you may have thought that.  My phone, nowadays a portable computer giving me social, net and personal contact across the globe, is almost part of me.  Pretty much surgically attached.  But it's debatable whether losing my it would be more or less agonising than losing this... my memory stick.

 

Yes.  I know.  Disastrous.

 

During the day, at work, my memory stick is plugged into my office PC.  At lunch time I'll write a bit, when the chance prevails.  I'll work on the various author interviews that Sin carries out when he hijacks this blog.  My book covers, blurbs, part completed stories and all sorts are stored thereon.

 

You'd think, of course, I'd backup.  Regularly, considering what's at stake.  I have Skydrive, Google drive, Dropbox and others.  Lots of Cloud storage at my disposal.  I've worked with computers for over 30 years.  I tell others to backup all the time.

 

So.

 

Why didn't I?

 

Well, I did, but that was a couple of months ago.  That was before I'd worked on interviews.  That was before I'd written more of Mortal Sin, the sequel to Sin.

 

Do I feel like an idiot?  Yes.  Have I berated myself?  Oh yes.

 

I unplugged the stick from my PC when I left work, as I always do.  I put it in my pocket, yes, like I always do.  But when I went to it later that night, it was gone.  I'd been in my car, but it wasn't there - I checked.  I'd taken my girls to the park, but that was a large area so there was little point in looking there.  It wasn't at home.

 

It also wasn't still poking out of my PC the next morning, as I'd hoped.

 

It was gone, along with everything on it.

 

Thankfully, Cindy Harper, a fan and friend, was the holder of my salvation - or a part of it, at least.  I'd sent her, up until a week or so ago, what I'd written on Mortal Sin.  She sent it back and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Granted it was only around 10,000 words or so, but it had been written over a couple of years - I'd paused in the story to write Dark Places.  I couldn't reproduce it, so I was hugely relieved when she emailed me the files.

 

The rest, I will have to download from my Skydrive when I get a new stick.  Still, there'll be bits missing.  My blog entries.  A couple of stories I was working on.

 

I could kick myself.  I should.  I should also heed my own advice.  Maybe I will from now on.  If you could email a file direct to your own Skydrive storage, that'd help.  Maybe you can - or to one of the other Cloud storage places - but I don't know how.  I should make the time to find out.

 

So.

 

Backup, people.  Or risk amputation of the most painful kind!

Oh, hopefully you see the relevance of the image up top. Just a little joke from me.  Also, you can see Sin's interview with the aforementioned Cindy Harper here: http://flipandcatch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/cyn-by-any-other-word_29.html. Drop by there as a thanks for saving Sin!