A Cautionary Tale: Tech Error

 

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Since 2004, each week I’ve been writing and posting these articles about The Writing Life.  I’ve had many different experiences and enjoy helping you with these stories and the various resources. Don’t worry. I’m not going to stop writing these pieces and giving back to the writing community through them. 

I had a tech error which interrupted the article I was going to show you today. Throughout my week I get ideas for these articles and will write a few sentences into a file then save it.

Yesterday I took one of those ideas and wrote the article for today. It contained links to other resources and a series of action steps for writers. In the completion process, I swept through it several final times and perfected every detail including ClickToTweet and even posting it into my social media plans.When I “published” it, one of the settings was wrong and instead of publishing it on the typical Sunday morning time, it instantly published it.

I did not want this article released. I checked the behind-the-scenes setting and could not determine how to put it back on schedule. Then I made a fatal error to this article: I deleted it and put it into the trash. It disappeared and when I searched the help menu, I learned it could not be recovered.

As I look back, I could have prevented this error by opening a new post, cutting and pasting my work into a new article, then saving it. But that possibility disappeared when I deleted the article. I was disappointed with my error. While I knew I created it in the first place and can write it again, I could not muster the energy to start it immediately. Instead I went on to other tasks for the rest of my day. 

Sometime in the future, I will write again that deleted article and post it in The Writing Life. Instead today, I’m posting this cautionary tale about a tech error. In my writing life, I’ve rarely lost a piece of writing because I have faced this situation in the past. Admittedly it has happened rarely but happened. It’s why I often draft my writing in a Microsoft Word file then save it and return to finish it off and finalize it. That carefully created process didn’t happen this time. Instead I pushed the delete button and it erased.

How do you protect your writing from such errors? What steps to you take with your creative work? When it happens does it throw off your work? Does it make you take a break? How do you return and keep moving forward? This situation has the possibility of quiting and ending the writing process. It’s not an alternative I’m willing to take. Instead I take a break from it, then return to it and continue. I’m committed to continuing to post these articles about the writing life.

A Broader Perspective

For this article, I have focused on my crafted then deleted article. I want to conclude this article with another step I took to focus on some of the other things that happened in my publishing life. Because of my work with Morgan James Publishing, I championed the work of authors and my publication board agreed with the merits of these authors and sent me three book contracts. I sent these contracts on to the authors. Also I established some new publishing relationships in the community.  These activities are only a few of what I accomplished last week including sending my weekly email newsletter and posting on social media 12-15 times a day. In addition, I learned a book that I championed and was published through Morgan James Publishing ten years ago in 2015. It was one of the top five books MJP sold this year.

The Paleo Cardiologist: The Natural Way to Heart Health was this book. I refuse to let one tech error downgrade the other positive things which happened during the week. 

Each of us are on this publishing journey. What steps are you taking to continue and move forward in your journey? Let me know in the comments below.

Tweetable:

Have you accidentally deleted a new piece of writing? This prolific author and editor gives the details and a cautionary tele of his tech error. (ClickToTweet)

During my decades in publishing, I’ve spoken with hundreds of writers about their dreams and plans. Many of these authors have  unrealistic expectations about what will happen with their published book. Many aspects of the publishing process are outside of anything an author can control. I wrote 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS to give authors practical help. You can get decades of insights in 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS for only $10, free shipping and over $200 of bonuses. 

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