The Space between Spaces

An external disk crash is a tragedy. You see, my computer doesn't have much memory. The little it has is claimed by the increasing size of the operating system at each update. I back my files up on a WD terabyte drive.

The drive failed this week. Although I hope to get the contents recovered, the remaining chapters of The Space between Atoms reside on that drive. In fact, the thousands of pieces of my writing yet unpublished do.

I don't trust the cloud. How can you trust something where your files, like a Heisenbergian electron can't be precisely traced? I like to know where my files are. Right now they're nowhere. The silly drive whirs and ticks like an electronic idiot, but it doesn't show where the files are.

Data recovery, I've discovered, costs eight times the cost of a disk drive. The lesson? Buying half a dozen backup drives is cheaper. If one disk fails your files are still somewhere.

Months of my life went into writing The Space between Atoms. Experts with dollar signs for irises tell me that the data are recoverable. Ah yes, for a price. Because of the pandemic you have to mail it in. I won't know where my files are. Ironic, isn't it?

You might suggest tracking. This past holiday season I had a package "delivered" according to the Post Office. Only it never was. I called my local branch. "Joe's usually pretty good about that sort of thing," they said.

Ideas are perhaps inherently unstable. I awake very early in the morning to write before work. I've been doing so for years. I've accumulated stories—many ready for publication—now gone. My laptop can run the latest system, but it has no room for all my work.

Does all of this make me trust the cloud? Not at all. There are spaces between atoms, and hopefully I'll be able to continue posting them soon. If they can recover my data. If not, we'll all have to live with the space between spaces. Tech is, after all, our friend.

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa kept his manuscripts in a trunk and became posthumously famous. Will the same ever happen for those who keep their thoughts in the cloud?

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best. When you’ve been writing for half a century, you l

Neglectful Parents

If I was a parent I’d be accused of neglect. I have to say 2017 was the least published year of recent memory. Not that I’ve been neglecting my fiction, but I had a non-fiction book accepted and I work full-time and commute to that job—you get the picture. I’ve also had a personal epiphany. If you can write, you should get paid for it. I know a publicist (not my own; I don’t have one) and she says she won’t let her authors even write an op-ed if they don’t get paid. I guess I’d never get published then. My Medusa novel had a flicker of hope for a few moments. A publisher actually wrote back asking for the rest of the manuscript. That’s never happened before. Then the editor disappeared. Even called me by the wrong pseudonym. I’ve gotta wonder about that because the second half of the novel’s even better than the first. While looking for an agent for my non-fiction (couldn’t find one of those either) I came across several who said they liked quirky ficti

Too Much Writing?

Has this ever happened to you? Have you written a story that you’ve completely forgot? Not only completely forgotten, but made unfindable? I play games with my stories and sometimes the joke’s on me. Okay, I suffer from graphomania. I write constantly. I do try to keep organized—I use a spreadsheet that has all my submissions on it. It has rejection/acceptance dates (mostly rejection). Lots of information. I decided to list on it every story, whether finished or in process. There are far too many (mostly in process). When I finish a story I often submit it. If I get burned, I’m shy about resubmitting. I often rewrite at this stage. Then, when I feel brave enough, I try again. The spreadsheet is color-coded. There, in the color that indicates finished and ready to submit is a story cryptically titled “The Password.” I don’t remember this story. I can’t recall what it was about or why I thought it was ready to publish. Looking through my electronic files,

K. Marvin Bruce

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