Are You Saved?
Last week I went panning for gold. Took myself down to the edge of a babbling stream. Or maybe it was a streaming babble. Anyway, I squatted down, hopeful, full of that rich anticipation that rises in me when I'm on the hunt for nuggets of gold.
Now, I know full well that when I'm panning for gold nuggets I'm likely to find only flakes. But that's okay. Flakes are fine, too. But it's the search for nuggets that brings me to the bank of the stream. And I stand there momentarily, looking at the water, the ripples, the blurred prospects of being a successful prospector.
I choose my spot, squat down and dip my pan in the water, watch the clarity of the liquid pass over it, and then I pull it out and slosh the water around, until all that remains is a tiny island of sand. Moving my hands in circles, the water flips over the edges of the pan back into the flow, drop by tiny splash, until something begins to happen. Slowly, gradually. And I can't believe my eyes! There is something glittering in the bottom of my pan! I look closer. Yes! It is! There in the midst of useless sand and debris is a mound of gold nuggets! Not just one nugget; a pile of them!
The excitement at this unprecedented find (at least for me) rises in me and I jump up, my eyes big as gold coins, and I twirl around, dancing, whooping at my colossal skill! This isn't just luck! To find a pile of gold nuggets, I have to be a very, very skillful prospector!
But then I hear something--a pounding roar! And I turn to see a wall of water pouring over me, lifting me off my feet, ripping the pan from my hands, and I'm churning and churning, my arms flailing to find something to grasp, and I'm slammed into a tree. I grab hold of it as the water rushes over me. But as fast as it arrived, the flash flood is gone. Just long enough to steal my treasure. And all that's left is the streaming babble. My babble. My seemingly never-ending, streaming babble of curses.
Depressing? Hard to believe?
Well, it really happened--sort of. Because last week in the middle of writing my blog titled "Out of the Chute: How to Write a Good Opening Line," I completed two hours of research and sat down beside that river of inspiration and creativity to seek out sparkling nuggets (words, phrases and ideas). I began to write (panning), and as my mind stirred and swirled like a pan in the waters passing me by, I kept finding nuggets--one after the other--and I was focused, and I was enjoying myself immensely at the little treasures I was excavating from the waters of my mind. (Okay, I know, this metaphor is getting a bit hokey, but it's how I really saw it in the end.) And here's the end:
Suddenly, the online blogging service I use--Quick Blogcast--logged off. For no bloody reason! Immediately, I realized that I hadn't saved anything. All my little nuggets were gone. Gone! And I flipped out! I exploded! Screaming at the top of my lungs, stomping and kicking and banging my fists on the desk, throwing a full-blown, three-year-old-style temper tantrum.
My face burned from the slew of curses and screams that erupted from the depths of my loss, from the lack of oxygen reaching my brain, and I flopped back down in my chair, staring at the blank frame of the blog page I had been working on. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I just guzzled an appropriate drink of cold coffee. And breathed. Deep breaths. Searching my brain for those nuggets. My brain was too soggy, though. The nuggets were gone. Forever. I had been too focused on the continuity to remember the elements exactly they way I had first written them.
If...I had just saved my work. Every few words. "Save." It was a click. Just a simple click. "Save." I've learned my lesson. Again. For the hundredth time, I've learned this lesson. Tom, are you saved? Hello? Are you saved, Tom?
Are you saved?
Posted by Tom Eubanks at 5/10/2010 2:18 PM 
Categories: Rants and Raves, General Blogging
Tags: Working It Huh Rant
Categories: Rants and Raves, General Blogging
Tags: Working It Huh Rant
Tom this makes me sweat! Like you, I know to save but don't most of the time. We all can relate. I like the way you turned this mishap into a fun story and a lesson. Are you saved?
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And the older I get, the worse it gets. I'm definitely not saved from my slipping memory.
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Oh, my, that is just awful! I thought Quick Blogcast had an auto-save feature. Ugh. Can't imagine. Sorry!
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Quick Blogcast is pathetic. I'd switch to Wordpress or something, but I'd lose the five-month history of entries and comments I've already written into their pathetic servers. You get what you don't pay for.
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I think we've all been there at one time or another, and any writer can relate. What a weird and fragile thing writing is . . .
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Usually I can recover what I didn't save. But this stupid Quick Blogcast doesn't have an autosave, as far as I can see, and if I switch to Wordpress or some other online blogging service, I'll love everything I've written and the comments for the five months I've used it. I could print everything up, but I'm not a storing-stuff kind of guy.
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Someone please take the hook outa my lip.
On a serious note, you may wanna look into a free or very cheap WordPress platform. It periodically automatically saves what you're writing, while you're writing. It's the best thing since sliced gold nuggets.
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How can I take everything I've written and the comments for the last five months and transfer it over to Wordpress? I don't think I can. I'd lose it all, unless I print it all up, and I just don't want paper files. I have enough paper files to deal with. If anyone knows how to transfer all my blogging to a new platform, let me know. I HATE this pathetic Quick Blogcast platform. It has a lousy look to it, no design characteristics and glitches constantly.
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Have you contacted the people at Wordpress to ask them if they know how you can do this? I can't believe there is no way; there has to be. Worst case scenario, you could print it all, have someone dictate it into a digital recorder (I realize it's a lot of dictating) and then upload it from that. But, I'm sure there is an easier way. Or, even save everything to an external hard drive and upload to Wordpress from that.
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I'll contact Wordpress and see. Thanks.
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