Today's Awful Moment and the Amazing Rescue

First of all, you need to know that edits are the literary equivalent of your least favorite chore.  Maybe cleaning the oven or wiping cat barf off the floor.

Also, I can use a computer but it still scares me.  I have my faithful little cow paths that I tread, but if anything rustles in the bushes beside me I freak out.

And Matt the faithful rescuer was leaving his place in Corvallis this morning for a new job in Washington, D.C.

So, I am working on a new book--yet another collection of my Register-Guard columns.  I'm self-publishing this one with the help of a graphic designer who works for the RG.  I told him I'd have the proof-read manuscript to him by noon today.

So I have been keeping my nose to the laptop, making sure every clause is properly comma'ed, every capital letter and hyphen and semi-colon is in its place, every story says what I want it to say, every Scripture reference is duly noted on the small-print page, every fact is factual, and everyone who might not like to be written about gets their name changed or even deleted.

It's like going through a 50-acre cornfield and pulling all the thistles and timothy and cockleburrs, down to the tiniest little sprouts.

I hired an editor to make sure everything was in Chicago Manual of Style, but I wasn't sure how to work with her finished product which was full of little markings and colored speech balloons in the sidebar.

So I figured out how to have the original manuscript I'd sent her on the left of the screen, and her edits on the right.  Then I went through the left half and made all the changes she'd suggested, plus a lot more.

I kept saving as I went, anxiously, having lost work in the past.

This morning I was at it by 6:30 and at 10:00 I added the last period to the dedication and I was done.

Whew.

I went to get a cup of coffee and then sat down to send the finished product to the page-designer guy.

It was gone.

I am serious, it was GONE.

I clicked on Word, and there were three other things I had worked on today but not the manuscript.

I went all over that laptop screen, clicking on everything.  I dug through the Recycle folder and the Recently Changed, through Works and Word and Adobe, through pictures and files of gibberish.

It was nowhere to be found.

I panicked.  I prayed.  I promised to give God the glory if he rescued me.

I broke down in desperate tears.

It was just GONE.

What what WHAT was I going to do?

I would have to do all those horrible fiddly little edits all over again.

It was too much, so I cried some more.

Finally, I called Matt, who has rescued me countless times, knowing he might be halfway to Idaho and even if he wasn't, this was probably beyond him.

He had just left Corvallis.

He delayed his going and came to help me.

I explained.

He looked cautious but with a little gleam of hope.

While I watched, tied in knots inside, Matt Googled something mysterious and then went digging in the basement of the computer, deeper than he had ever gone before, past rats' nests and wine cellars and forgotten subway lines, on and on, to a file marked TEMP.  There in a long list of meaningless letters I saw it--oh, glory, could it, could it be?

He opened it up.

There it was.

My new introduction, all my careful edits, even the dot behind the dedication that I had added last.

Perhaps we should draw the curtain of charity over my reaction except to say it was noisy and heartfelt.

I was saved.

Matt sauntered out to his packed-full car, grinning, and took off.

I sent the precious manuscript on its way, glorifying and praising God for all that I had heard and seen.

I want my children to be like Jesus in kindness and love and humility, but Matt is also like Jesus in one other area.

He can work miracles.

Quote of the Day:
"Ok, I've got Dad on a smartphone and Mom on 5-hour energy drinks.  My work here is done."
--Matt

[Ok, this is what I did wrong.  To start working, I opened my email to the editor lady and opened the attachment I had sent her.  I should have saved it in my documents before I ever started working on it.  Since I didn't, when I exited out of it, all my carefully saved changes disappeared and it went back to how it was when I sent the original email.

Believe me, I won't do that again.

What saved me was that the computer had backed it up in that hidden TEMP file, who knows why or how.]