There I was happily typing away on my book in Storymill, when I decided to tidy up the folders down the side. However, I forgot that Storymill has a major glitch when it comes to managing the views, in that it deletes a different file than you select. Yes, you guessed it, with one click of a button all my chapters were gone. G-O-N-E!! Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!!

I went to my trash. Scanning the list of files, sick was coming up the back of my throat. I was dizzy and my heart was beginning to race. It wasn’t there. WTF?!?!?! The book I have been working on for the past 8 years had dissapeared into thin air, because of a dodgy software program. I was breathing in short sharp gasps.

It’s okay, it’s okaaaaay, if I just close the file without saving, I should be able to reopen it and it will be there. WTF?!?!?!?! A blank page. I began to lose it, like really lose it. I kept telling myself to stay calm, and this is something I am usually very good at in the midst of a crisis. But not this time. This was my life’s work, my very reason for getting out of bed everyday for the past 8 years.

Where the fuck is my USB key with my back up on it? I couldn’t see. I was walking around in circles, unable to focus. You see, when I lived by myself, I knew where everything was and because I am a minamilist of sorts, I don’t do clutter. Now here I was surrounded by my flat mate’s packing boxes, full of what could only be described as crap. Man’s crap. Unidentifiable objects, that are just the grown up version of toy cars and marbles. I didn’t know where to start. I was paralysed with inaction coupled with mounting hysteria.

I remembered thinking earlier that day that I should print the whole book out on paper to have a proper read through. Something I have only done twice in the whole time I have been writing it. Did I say its been 8 years? But of course, I didn’t. I was unable to control the tears that were stinging the back of my eyes, nor my displaced anger, that I was sure I had left my USB on the desk. Yes, he tidied the desk yesterday and must have moved (LOST) my USB key and it’s all his fault. But of course, it wasn’t his fault, and he was the only one who was actually managing to do something useful in my hour of need. Searching the hard drive. God bless him (I’m not religious, but like I said, this was my hour of need, hell I was even prepared to pray).

Despite it being 3am in the morning, I grabbed at the first piece of clothing I could find and walked down to the petrol station for an emergency packet of cigarettes, even though I wasn’t even sure it would be open. I didn’t care that I was one of those girls I would see walking down a dimly lit street in the early hours on an reenactment of Australia’s Most Wanted – I needed a cigarette and fast.

Seeing the lights of the petrol station was like spotting a rescue chopper after being stranded in the bush for 3 days without food and water. But instead of hearing my hollers or spotting my waving arms from the air, it flew straight over me. The eftpos machine was down and he could only take cash, and of course I only had plastic. It was all I could do to not reach across the counter, grab him by him by the collar, pull him in close to me and say, LISTEN HERE, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll give me a packet of cigarettes NOW!

When I left the petrol station in search of the 7/11, it had started to rain. This was the cue for the tears I had been holding back in front of the cashier (I may have been a crazed woman, but I didn’t want to look like one) to turn into melodramatic sobs, punctuated by brief attempts to calm myself with rational thought. What am I going to do? I could rewrite it from scratch, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad? Of course, it’s bad, I’ll never be able to remember it all. My life is over.

You see, I’ve gambled my whole life on this book. I’ve struggled financially to follow my dream. Not only that, this book was born during a time when my whole world fell from underneath my feet. It nursed me, comforted me and kept me going. With each chapter, I grew stronger, and as I grew stronger, so did my book. It saw me though to the other side, to a good place, a very good place, and after all this time, the rest of the words were falling neatly and beautifully into place like a jigsaw puzzle that only has a few pieces to go.

Every time I’ve worked on it recently, I’ve felt the imminent excitement of finally seeing the masterpiece come together in all its spectacular glory. An excitement that is cherished, because of the sheer amount of time spent working on it, removing pieces I thought were right but open closer inspection didn’t quite fit. I’ve been patient, so very patient, knowing that in order to do my best work, I must pause and reflect between each stage. After all that time, it felt like someone had come along and tipped over the table, and I was on my hands and knees trying to pick up the pieces. But I couldn’t just hurriedly just stick them back together, because it would just be a big fat mess.

I returned home post the quick inhalation of a couple of cigarettes to calm my nerves, and steady my resolve to slowly yet surely go through each box until I found my USB key. Then 2 hours after my crisis commenced, it was over as quickly as I started, with a call from the bedroom. Phil had uncovered the backup copy I had emailed to myself prior to moving in case anything happened to my laptop or USB key, something I vaguely remember telling him I thought I had done, and that I’d also searched for myself. I would have suffocated him by wrapping my arms around him in joy and kissing him at his feet, but he is not keen on the smell of nicotine (he has taken of late to trailing me around the house with a bottle of Glen 20, so needless to say physical contact of any form was out of the question).

It’s now 6am, and I really must get my sleep, and let me tell you, I am going to sleep like a baby!

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