Losing a word document

I often hear about people losing documents, usually stories they've worked long and hard to write. Often people can open all other documents except this one on a floppy disk. Or the person saved the file for safekeeping, only to find they hid it so safely it's nowhere to be found.

I have a theory about this. A story is made in an author's mind. Its bare bones are sketched and written on the page. Once on those pages it takes on mythical proportions in the person's mind. The scenario is imagined, the characters live their lives beyond the written words. It becomes far greater than what is written on the page, the lives, tone and imaginary world takes on much greater form. These things are often yet to be written. The written document is lost.

This affords the writer a new shiny opportunity to re-write the story. Not only with the original details, but also with the new colourings, new shape, feel and texture. Usually the piece is far greater than the first draft ever was.

So if you lose a document, or that Word file just won't open, don't despair. Start again, and watch how much more wonderful the new story is. Don't try to reproduce the old. Just let the new one come to life. Let it grow, develop and shine.