Guest post: "My worst experience with a work in progress--"

Nora Fleischer is a writer with Drollerie Press and she graciously wrote this guest post for a blog tour organized by several Drollerie Press authors.  I will update this with links to the other posts as they come online over the next few days.

Nora writes:

"Like all tragedies, this starts with some hubris on the part of our
hero (otherwise known as me). Usually I make sure I have copies of my
works-in-progress somewhere other than my hard drive: an alternate email
account, a floppy disk (back in the old days), a zip drive (remember
those?), a backup hard drive, or at least a nice big stack of paper.
Usually. As I remember, the plan was to make a backup of the manuscript
once I'd actually completed it.

Did you know that sometimes, when your hard drive crashes, you can
actually hear the crash? Wham!

Dear readers, it was awful. I lost half the book I was working on.
I thought I'd never finish it, that I'd never get to be an author. My
lifelong dream, gone forever, just because I'd never backed up my work!
That book is now called "Over Her Head," and it's available right
here: Over Her Head.

So here is what I learned from my experience:

The first thing is that "first thought, best thought" is a total
lie. While it's easy to overwork a scene if you've already written it, if
you write the scene a second time, from scratch, knowing the characters who
are in the scene, and the emotional marks you want to hit, the second draft
is often better. It's like rehearsing the play and then acting it in front
of an audience.

So if you are in a similar situation-- mourning a lost manuscript--
I would definitely suggest giving it another shot. It's not gone forever,
as long as the characters and their world are still inside your brain.
Second of all, you need to back up your hard drive. Right now.
I'll wait."

 Thanks for your insights, Nora!

Readers, please check back for links to more 'blog tour' posts, and give Nora a shout out in the comments here or over at her LiveJournal.  Over Her Head may be purchased for a very nice price point over at Drollerie via the links above.

Take care,

Brandon