The Return of Space

I’m so excited. I’ve finally received a report from the data recovery center and it looks, at this point, like I’ll be able to recover The Space between Atoms. If so, I’ll be able to resume where we left off starting next week.

Recovering data is very expensive. You see, I had thousands and thousands of files on my backup drive that failed. It cost more than I’d like to think (let’s just say a new computer would be cheaper) to recover it. There’s no way I could reconstruct literally over a decade of daily writing.

The company I used was kind enough to suggest some better storage solutions. Hell, these machines look serious. They also cost a lot of money. I guess most of us would really not like to think how fragile are data are.

Speaking of data, one of the English language watchdog groups—I forget which one—has now declared that singular verbs can be used with “data.” Data is the plural of datum, but we tend to use the word as a bloc of information, making its meaning essentially singular.

Pardon me for being so giddy. I’ve been about three months now without all my files. Because there was so much data on that disc (which I will be double backing up from now on) I’m not even sure what was actually lost. I was cheered to hear the technician say 99 percent had been recovered.

One thing cheered me. The technician didn’t tell me that I should put everything on the cloud. It seems that everyone (even work) trusts the cloud. In my experience clouds evaporate. I’d rather have my data right here where I can see them. Even if it means spending a little more money.

I’m not sure The Space between Atoms has been preserved, but the chances are good. I haven’t received the data yet, but it’s on the way. Very expensive lesson learned.

Comments

Dusty

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The Same Old Story

After a story is rejected from a literary magazine—a rather frequent occurrence—I always revise it. For stories rejected half a dozen or more times—a rather frequent occurrence—the stories can shift substantially. In a version of the old saw that “this is the axe used by George Washington to chop down the cherry tree; it has had five new handles and three new heads,” I wonder if the story is the same after such revision. I write in the flush of inspiration. The story comes to me roughly complete. The literati say “no,” and I assume the fault must be my own. I knuckle down and start trying to revise to their liking. The action changes. The ending changes. The characters change. Is it the same story? Is the fault that my addled brain seems to have trouble telling a story someone wants to read? Is it the curse of an internet that makes writers of anyone with fingers to type? I started writing fiction four decades ago. If I’d tried to start publishing then, perhap

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K. Marvin Bruce

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