I’m writing this piece from my brand new laptop.
I’m not bragging. I swear to you. I have this new laptop because my old one — my loyal writing companion over the past four years — was drowned in water, accidentally, by my 3-year-old. Financially, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We weren’t really prepared to have to buy a new one, but I work from home and use it every single day. Yet the most devastating, heart-breaking, soul-crushing thing of all this has nothing to do with money. It’s the fact that the two books I poured my heart and soul into have disappeared into the ether, completely unable to be recovered.
You’re probably thinking “girl, why didn’t you back up your books? You would have been spared all this heartbreak”. And I don’t blame you. You would think, in this day and age, I’d be technologically savvy enough to do just that. I don’t have any excuses but, trust me, nobody is as angry at me as I am.
I’m not ashamed to admit that the moment I realised my two books were gone, I cried. And I’m not talking small tears streaming down my face as I stared longingly out the window. I’m talking full body convulsions as I sobbed and sobbed in the shower. I couldn’t fathom starting over again — there was just so much work put into those books, too many sleepless nights thinking about my beloved characters, too many hours eaten away as I tried to find the perfect words.
I had only just written and published my piece about being a bad writer when this all happened. And my overly dramatic mind was sure that the universe was shutting me up for good. “You certainly are a bad writer,” the universe seemed to be saying, “and now you’ll never write a single word again, I’ll make sure of that.” You see, I can be very dramatic — sometimes to the point of self-destruction. I look for signs in things where signs often aren’t. I move in extremes, like giving up my dreams in a microsecond because things have suddenly become harder, more unfair. So I sat curled up on the floor of my shower, vowing in-between breathless sobs that I was never going to write again. Pen to paper. Fingers to keyboard. I was convinced that I could force myself to leave it all behind. Wipe my hands clean. Run. Disappear for good.
It just felt too hard to start over.
And yet, in the days that followed, the more I longed for my books again. I missed them.
Whenever I’m sad or frustrated or struggling to find my footing on this peculiar planet, something deep inside of me seeks the comfort of the fictional worlds of my imagination. I want to be encased in the loving arms of my characters who, after all this time, feel like real human beings to me — old friends, old lovers, old versions of myself. And as I mourned my lost books, my lost work, the stories I spent two years crafting, I craved to be embraced by them again. Even when I knew I couldn’t be.
And that’s when I felt the lightning strike — I couldn’t just fall to my knees and give up. Here I was standing at a precipice, I realised, and I only had two options. I could decide to turn around and declare the act of rewriting my books too impossible of a task, or I could step into the great unknown, not knowing where or when my feet would land, but trust that I would someday say I faced my crippling self-doubt and re-birthed my stories. I wrote these two books before, I thought with bated breath, I could do it again. I could, I could, I could—
I chose option two.
As I waited for my new laptop, I spent those long stretches of time unable to write feeling my emotions but not letting them devour me whole. I grieved my old books — sometimes by crying, sometimes by dramatically throwing myself down on furniture like women in those old oil paintings. Splaying myself across couches or beds, hand draped over my forehead, eyes closed. I watched Vice Principals with my husband, my tears slowly turning into fits of laughter. I spent time with my parents and played with my kids and finished reading a book. And by the time I picked up my new laptop, I felt those heavy emotions fall from my shoulders, floating down to the ground at my feet like confetti.
I could feel it in my bones. I was ready to start writing again.
To be honest, I’m still in those very, very early stages of putting everything back together. I’ve reloaded Scrivener, I’ve recreated files, I’ve started rewriting notes to begin re-outlining my books. I’m trying to decide which project I want to work on first, because both books have a special place in my heart and I don’t want either of them to be lost in the void forever. I also don’t want to continue my pattern of moving in extremes, giving myself motion sickness, and trying to write both at the same time. I’d very much like to avoid becoming overwhelmed or creatively burned out if you don’t mind.
On my old computer, the first book had a completed second draft and I was getting ready to start line edits. The other book was almost a third into the second draft and was going through big structural changes. I’m really trying to not think about all the words I need to rewrite from scratch to get back to that. I’m trying to focus on the here and now. What can I do in this particular moment?
But my brother said something that made me rethink how disappointing this entire situation is and the opportunity I have before me now: “Before, you were so married to what the books were that making any changes was hard. But now, because you have no choice but to start over, you have the freedom to write them any way you want.” And that’s so true. The idea of ‘killing your darlings’ as a writer is so darn terrifying. It feels more like a massacre. Self-inflicted torture. Making big changes means the book transforms, for better or for worse. What if I waste my time? What if I regret it? But now I have this strange freedom to turn my stories into something else, something better even, something they would’ve never become before.
I needed a moment to curse my past choices, to mourn my lost words, to feel devastatingly sorry for myself, but now I’m excited to pick myself up and see what my stories ultimately become. My brother is right, I have all this freedom stretching out before me and I want to explore it. In my piece about feeling like a bad writer, I said that maybe I was actually a good writer because in the end I never gave up. I kept writing, writing, always writing. Because it’s my passion, my lifeblood, my addiction. It’s something so deeply embedded into my soul that I can’t imagine a world where my fingers aren’t delicately dancing across a keyboard, spinning words together, creating worlds from nothing. Even when my books are lost, that’s still not enough to deter me forever. I know myself well enough that if I gave up now, I’d just be back here writing again in a couple of months because I’m compelled to do little else.
When I wrote about losing my work on Notes,
answered saying “hoping this turns into one of those inspiring ‘I’m so glad this happened’ stories we’ll read in your memoir one day.” And I’m so determined to make this my reality — to rewrite my books gloriously, to use these new versions of them to someday break into the industry I stare at lovingly from afar.I’m not an inspirational story yet, but I’m hell-bent on becoming one.
So, my fellow writer folk, let me end with saying this:
Let me be your cautionary tale. Please, please, please — for all that is good in the world — back up your work. Save it everywhere. Don’t be like me staring at your broken computer, wishing and begging the universe to just allow you thirty more seconds to recover what’s locked away behind the black screen of death. Especially if you don’t want your heart ripped out of your chest or a night spent on the floor of your shower crying your eyes out.
Don’t let the all-consuming and soul-crushing fear of ever having to start over deter you from ever actually starting over. You might lose your work, you might even decide that your work needs to be rewritten. Regardless you need to trust in your creativity and talent and grit that you can do it. It would be so easy for me to walk away from the precipice, to convince myself that the universe is telling me to never write again. But what good would that actually accomplish in the long run?
And finally, my dearest writer friend, just keep writing. Feel it’s alchemy like only a writer truly can. It’s so worth it — even if it’s just filling your own heart and soul with pleasure, even if you’re not sharing it with others, even if it will never see the light of day. Write, write, always write. Promise me you will.
Until next time,
- Madeline
I felt so devastated for you reading this - but I’m so happy to read how you’re working through it and getting back on track, by keep writing. 💛
Moving in extremes - I know how that feels, but sometimes you just have to feel it all to be able to move past it and get back up.
Cheering you on!
This is so hard to read Madeline—how devastating to find all that work wiped out. But you already are an inspiration because you’ve moved through that loss and picked up your pen again. That tenacity is what makes all the difference. As my friend said to me when I faced a major rewrite (which meant killing many darlings … so daunting): I can’t wait to see what the freedom to do something new will bring! That really helped, and the result is actually a much a better novel. You’ve got this! 💜