The work in progress that I am required a major tune up these last 2 weeks. I soul searched, and I soul found. Or I think I did, but you know i can still change my mind about that too.
When my hard drive was wiped cleaned recently, apparently so were my brain cells. It was like a lobotomy minus the white gown and the smell of ether. For a week, I could not utter a sentence that did not include a combination of the words ‘hard’, ‘drive’, and ‘lost’ as in “the heat is hard, i feel lost and did I tell you that all the writing I had stored in my hard drive is lost.” or ''Ilostmyfriggingharddriveicantfriggingbelieveitimgonnakillmyself."
This went on for a while until everyone around me was thoroughly bored with it, at which point I curled up in a ball and went through an accelerated version of the five stages of grief, adding a few more of my concoction: self-flagellation, self-pitying, Sex in the City marathon, Baking-and-eating banana bread-athon, (and the ensuing Throwing up-athon.)
How could I survive without all my stuff? My writing! My writing! My words, my beautiful words! Bwhahhh!
But within the self-indulgent emotional devastation, there were pockets of quiet inside me that I was becoming aware of. That elusive strange kind of calm I rarely experience while sober was seeping in slowly into my consciousness. In the morning, I'd wake up, sit up and say ‘Quick, writing emergency! I'm late! I'm late! Got to finish/redo that article, that novel, that screenplay, that query letter!' Then I'd remember my defunct hard drive, flop back down on the pillow and say 'all gone now' like a three year old. Then I'd stare at the pattern on the bedroom curtain for the next hour mumbling incoherently to myself: ''Nothing to think-- No think to thing--What to think-- What to thing?--Thinking is the thing i do. I think therefore I am, so if I don’t thing I don’t am.'
After a week, the fever broke. There was a fresh wind blowing softly though my neurons, a sense of rejuvenation, of relief. I had so many projects started, all of which I had deemed in need of urgent completion. And brilliance. They all required brilliance. I was in fact overwhelmed with the sheer mass of things to work on, Urgently and Brilliantly. And now that it was all gone, wasn’t I absolved from the burden of task-completion? And by extension, wasn’t I relieved from my self-imposed pressure to achieve, to succeed, to make my name count for something one day?
It occurred to me that if I was to survive this loss I'd have to connect with that part of me that isn't my work and find a way to be good enough, with or without it.
Good enough without the work that I created as a mean to define myself? How do you do that? What would happen if I did not write? No, scratch that, I'll always write. What would happen if I wrote for fun rather than for success? Those used to be criminal thoughts, as there would be no point in writing if it wasn't for an end result. But now I had to face the facts: years of my work had indeed vanished. I had very little to show for in the last ten years. What would become of me if my books never were finished, never were published, never printed, never sold, never read?
And then I realized that I would absolutely be okay. In the process of writing every day, five hours a day for the last ten years, i still have not found an agent or an editor who believes in me. I have not found a publisher either. But I did find something --and I know it sounds melodramatic but I'm going to say it anyway--In the last ten years of devoting myself to writing, I have, I believe, found me.
Those photographs that look like paintings are the work of artist Lynn Geesaman. The images I found here, here and here.
I know this is hard - the process of remembering and realizing all that you have lost.
Finding yourself through all of this, though. Good for you.
xoox
Posted by: AGirlNamedMe | September 13, 2009 at 04:02 PM
Now that you have found 'you', please be very nice to 'you' and go ahead and 'self-publish' all things you will write now and in the future. We need your words. LPXO
Posted by: Liberty Post Editor | September 13, 2009 at 04:06 PM
I'm so sorry to hear about your loss.
Posted by: jennifer lorton | September 13, 2009 at 06:07 PM
I think it's essential to allow time to grief over the loss of a hard drive, but i'm glad you got your writing mojo back. You're a great writer...don't you forget that!
PS: thanks for the birthday wishes!
Posted by: Trishie Koh | September 13, 2009 at 07:09 PM
So glad your computer misfortunes had the benefit of freeing you to head in new directions. And yet, at the same time ... I'm going to back up my hard drive immediately!!
Posted by: Two Wishes Tara | September 13, 2009 at 07:49 PM
I read your words and i am terrified, not sure if i can face that kind of loss- having lots all my childhood photographs and other sacred possesion i have trouble letting go, yet i understood fully the quietness that comes with " well there is nothing i can do, itis out of my hands" those words and facts are a gift i know this!
Posted by: nadia | September 14, 2009 at 03:12 AM
you are an inspiration to me, if that means anything to you. it should b/c for the most part i am pretty cool. :)
Posted by: my favorite and my best | September 14, 2009 at 05:19 AM
thank you most perfect for my soul this am....
Posted by: b.lamphier | September 14, 2009 at 07:43 AM
I believe in you, too, Corine.
I know two people who lost their WHOLE final book draft...both were overdue to publishers. I was present for one 'crash' - the screaming was so bad I thought he'd been attacked. It's been 25+ years & I can still hear it. I can also see the same fetal position he was in when reached. It happened in autumn & the memory has come flooding in. But life went on, as you've described.
Readjustments were made, paper drafts were kept thereafter. (I never bought that nonsense of the 'paperless' office/life/home, anyway.)
It is a loss but it's a beginning, if I may be so syrupy. You're free, in a way, to recreate the writing without being tethered to previous drafts (or what you decided was a finished piece). I really mean that without diminishing--in any way--the loss.
Have you thought through a new system? Paper drafts, dated, marked up? Stuff burned on to CD, labelled, & piled up? I saw some beautifully colored boxes, files, & assorted office stuff at IKEA on Friday. If I'd not been piling in about 10 years' worth of stuff I really, really needed into the shopping cart, I would've gone for these things right away.
And I have a curtain question -- really it's a window problem. If I can't find a solution, perhaps I can ask you later this week or early next?
xoxo
Posted by: Susan | September 14, 2009 at 09:01 AM
oh corine, i'm so happy for you! i know that sounds weird since you lost your hard drive content, but it's true that you have some celebrating to do. you've found yourself, and that's so precious. i'm positive that from now on your writing will be all the more richer. xx
Posted by: josephine | September 14, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Isn't it what "they" say (Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra..), that we don't need to be constantly doing or thinking, that all of this fills our ego, but we need to find peace and happiness by just BEING. Easier said then done, I know. Just remember that you friends love you for who you are, not because of the great things you write whether they get published or not. I love these photos.
Posted by: Isabelle | September 14, 2009 at 01:17 PM
You are amazing and an inspiration...that is one mighty loss to deal with. xv
Posted by: Vicki Archer | September 14, 2009 at 03:05 PM
I did not read this.
So sorry Corine.
Posted by: Randy | September 15, 2009 at 01:06 PM
Hello - loved this post. In fact, I love your whole blog. Thanks so much for sharing it & best wishes to you ....
Posted by: Elise | September 16, 2009 at 07:44 AM
I could have sworn I left a comment here yesterday. Anyway my sympathies to you dear Corine and happy new, fresh start.
Hugs
Di
xo
Posted by: Di Overton | September 16, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Oh wow...I know that feeling...of losing everything on your hard drive. Guess I had to learn the hard way to back up everything on a disc or flash drive. The bad side of technology. Sorry for your loss :(
Posted by: Julie | September 17, 2009 at 06:48 AM
So sorry for your loss, but I am so envious of you being able to find yourself!
I believe it is one of the most priceless thing one can achieve. I'm still trying to find myself, to know what I really want and my identity. Wish me luck! :)
View this mishap as a fresh beginning of a new chapter of your life! ;)
Posted by: Hilda | September 17, 2009 at 05:25 PM
Greeeeeen. Preeeettttyyy.
My computer joined the Mercury revolution, and quit on me. I had enough time to back up everything (except my bookmarks, which I forgot..but I had at least up til April, the last time I had backed them up), but I lost the 50 or so tabs I had open in my Firefox, of things I meant to follow up on. Ideas. People. Projects. Pictures. So much amazing stuff, I hadn't gotten around to saving. My stomach is clenching thinking of it.
But it IS freeing...losing all that baggage, all that unfinished stuff, all of a sudden you are free to do whatever you want to NOW, rather than struggling to keep up.
Now, if I can just go on like this now, rather than beginning again. :p
Posted by: muralimanohar | September 20, 2009 at 12:02 AM
YIKES!!!!!!!!!!! Nighmare! Rather reminds me of my house right now. It flooded in mid august, yes FLOODED in summer in CA. 6 inches of water thru the entire place so needless to say EVERY wall has to be redone...etc etc. Just don't stop writing here PLEASE
Cat
Catherine
Posted by: Catherine | September 21, 2009 at 01:06 PM
What an amazing post! I too just lost my hard-drive, and feel so lost without it... I keep telling myself, 'I am not my hard drive' kind of like 'I am not my work' - right? So we must keep on the path, despite the horrible cliff we had to fall off. Thank goodness for wings!
Hugs
Ulla
Posted by: Ulla | September 21, 2009 at 04:32 PM