When I write my novel, I do it on a computer. I use Microsoft Word, and I use the “Master Document” setting, which allows me to keep each chapter as a separate file connected to the larger “master” file. Occasionally, I will be away from the computer with a little time on my hands, and I’ll try to write a few pages longhand on a legal pad. I keep a portfolio with me for just such an instance.

Recently, I wrote a page in longhand and was pleased with what I thought was a fairly dramatic scene. So I took that longhand page and entered it into my manuscript, revising and changing as I typed. I was pleased with the end result. I also had a second file open in Word, a reference file that keeps me in line with the timeframe that the novel is using, and I made a note or two there.

Satisfied, I tore up the handwritten page, clicked the save on the timeline file, and was surprised to see Word shut down completely because of some unspecified error!

Had I saved the manuscript file? I wasn’t sure.

I reopened Word and checked. The new page was gone. The handwritten version was in pieces. So, I dug the pieces out of the trash can and reassembled them with scotch tape. I was no longer in the mood to write, so I left the taped up page to the side, vowing to redo everything later.

This morning, I found myself in the mood to redraft that scene. So I took that tattered page and retyped it. I made more changes as I went along, and this new third version of the same scene was better than the second one. I stopped to reread what I had written. Just three lines from the last sentence, the power went out.

Well surely I wasn’t stupid enough to have forgotten to save again! On second thought, I might just have been that stupid, having assumed that such a ridiculous situation could only occur on an episode of “Three’s Company” or “Gilligan’s Island.”

Sure enough, I had taken the “it couldn’t possibly happen” approach and had failed to save the new pages. Again.

So, I have just retyped the same scene for the third time. I hit save every few sentences. If the power went out again, it wasn’t going to take the whole thing again!

I’m beginning to wonder whether the “evil spirit” my psychic character has detected is trying to tell me something!