Is it possible to have happy news in these times?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote two chapters and a bunch of future notes for the book I’m working on. You know the kind: “Make sure x does this before she meets y”, “Plant the teeth in the garden so z can find them later…” Those kind of notes. And I was writing of USB because I was switching PCs.

Why wasn’t this in the cloud, you dolt? I here you ask. It was GOING to be, but I have two different logins for Office and my work ethic is very strict about never doing personal writing during work hours, so I used a stick this one time so I could print. (Never got to print.)

And I transferred the new file over to the old file. Only I did it the wrong way around. Old file over new file and that was that. Yes, you can recover deleted files, but not overwritten ones and not when you don’t have File History turned on (new laptop) so yeah. Rookie mistakes all, and ones I haven’t made in almost a decade.

Lessons were learned.

Much swearing ensued, but somewhat muted because I have a dog with PTSD, so it was all happy-tone swearing. “Whose mum’s a fucking idiot? Yes she is! Yes she is! Shit, fuck, fuck, biscuit!”

The next day I received an email from a reader who had read Tallwood (library copy) and liked it so much, she wanted to buy one of her own. Luckily, I have some copies and was able to send her one. But the fact that someone enjoyed my work enough to reach out, that she was so lovely and enthusiastic and genuinely enjoyed the story, made up for all the deleted files and swearing and frustration. I have since jotted down most of what I remember and, energy willing, am going to recreate these chapters hopefully better than before.

This person got in touch at just the right time.

Thank you, Dear reader, for giving me a well-needed boost.