I was finally finished and started sending C.o.G. out to publishers.
A few months later my laptop crashed in a MAJOR way. Even the operating system was gone, not to mention my files, photos...everything. But that was okay, most of that stuff was on my flash drive in my desk. No worries.
I worked on my laptop, re-installing everything I needed. Now to get my flash drive and open up my files and re-save them to the ol' un-trusty laptop. I open the desk drawer that I keep the flash drive in and it isn't there. I search the other drawers, no dice. I search my purses, laptop case, dresser drawers, end tables, night stands, under the couch cushions, everything in that house was turned upside down.
I never did find the flash drive, and it's whereabouts are still a mystery 7 years later. I did, however, find the first rough draft of Child of Galina. I put it away, heartbroken that over an entire year's worth of work was gone.
2013 arrived. Many, many things had changed in my life since I lost the final version of C.o.G. in 2007. I was in a better place physically and emotionally. I'd moved home, gotten a divorce, went a little wild, got a job, calmed down, started dating, went back to college, changed jobs, got engaged, graduated college, got a house, got married, new job started stressing me out and killing my soul so at night when insomnia haunted me, I edited the original rough draft of Child of Galina, and there waiting for me were memories of some of the things i'd gone through that nearly broke me and the reasons why coming back home had saved my life.
Editing C.o.G. from the viewpoint of having come through it all was much more difficult than when I edited it the first time. Some things were lost in translation as a different person was editing the novel than the person who had written it.
Child of Galina will always be where I truly started as a writer, but I have more stories in me, some that I'm working on right now and I hope to do justice to my new stories, better than I was able to give to C.o.G.
