# Help wanted, please



## The Judge (May 1, 2009)

I'm not sure if anyone can help me with this problem which is bugging me.

I started writing my bound-to-be-a-bestseller some time in early 2006 in (?on) Windows XP Pro Word 2003 (whatever that is).  Trouble is, I can't now find out when I started it.  I know the exact date isn't vital but, as I say, it's bugging me.

I've looked in the 'properties' folder for chapter one (and others) but that shows a date in November 2006, which I know is at least 7 months too late.  I think what has happened is that I changed chapter one many, many times, but instead of simply changing and saving, I've saved it with a new name (eg 'chapter 1 #2'), run the two versions in conjunction for a while, and then dumped the first one before re-naming the second one as the (new) chapter one.  And this has happened again and again as I made drastic changes to lay out etc.

I have also checked in my recycle bin, but I can find nothing relevant there earlier than November 2006.  I can't recall if I've emptied the bin at all, but I suppose I must have done.

Is it possible for me to trace the very first incarnation of chapter one, with its date of opening?  If so, how?  And please bear in mind that I have the technological expertise of a wombat.  

Thanks for all and any suggestions.

J


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## The Ace (May 1, 2009)

Have you tried, 'My Documents,' or opening a blank Word document, selecting, 'Open,' from the file menu and seeing what comes up ?

Another way is to go into your hard drive (usually C: accessed from, 'My Computer.') and look in the document folders there.  As long as you don't delete anything, you're fairly safe.

It sounds like you have Windows XP Pro as an Operating System and you're using Office 2003 Word as your word processor.  Office 2003 has many functions but Word is the most frequently used feature and it's one of the best word processors on the market.

Another thing you could try is to select, 'Search,' from the Start menu and set either .doc (the extension that tells the computer it's a Word document) in the, 'Search,' box or try typing the date you want into the, 'Date Modified,' box


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## The Judge (May 2, 2009)

Ace, thank you so much.  I'd looked on 'properties' for the individual chapters, but hadn't thought to do the same for the whole folder.  Doh!  But after going the 'my computer' route, there it is - 14 January 2006!

If you're ever in Hampshire let me know - I owe you a drink!

J

PS  Is the original 'chapter one' itself lost if I've emptied the recycle bin - or is it still lurking in the depths of my laptop?  You never know if academics of the future might want to spend time analysing the differences between first and one-hundred-and-first draft...!!


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## zachariah (May 2, 2009)

Almost certainly yes, but you'll need special software to find and recover it. There is an outside chance it will not be recoverable if you have been creating and deleting a *lot* of other files since getting rid of the one you're after.

On the whole, do not consider anything on your computer truly deleted until you've crushed the disks to powder.


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## Ursa major (May 2, 2009)

The Judge said:


> You never know if academics of the future might want to spend time analysing the differences between first and one-hundred-and-first draft...!!


 
Funny you should mention this....


I did my first serious computing using the George 3 operating system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_3), which created a a new "generation" (i.e. copy) of a file every time you edited it. I have got into the habit of doing this myself: hence hundreds of slightly diffrent versions of my books.

It can be quite liberating: I can chop and change a lot, knowing that there are always earlier versions of any existing scenes/paragraphs/phrases to pilfer from if I decide that I've cut too much.


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## The Judge (May 3, 2009)

Zachariah - thanks.  Now I am torn between keeping my old laptop forever for the sake of my public D) or crushing it so no one can see how bad the original drivel was!

Ursa - I don't think I could do that - sometimes my edits consist of changing one word in a chapter, so the copies would mount up pretty quick.  And how do you remember which draft holds which deleted phrase?  When I edit out something that might, just might, come in useful, I take it to a special 'useful paragraphs' file.  Never used anything from it of course - but I'm a hoarder of things in case they might come in handy some day.

It makes you wonder how academics will be dealing with the work of serious novelists in the future, though.  You hear about institutions buying up writers' notes and preliminary drafts etc and there are always dozens and dozens of box files and the like.  In the future, will the institutions just be getting a couple of memory sticks with every revised draft there in all its glory?

J


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## Ursa major (May 3, 2009)

The Judge said:


> Ursa - I don't think I could do that - sometimes my edits consist of changing one word in a chapter, so the copies would mount up pretty quick. And how do you remember which draft holds which deleted phrase? When I edit out something that might, just might, come in useful, I take it to a special 'useful paragraphs' file. Never used anything from it of course - but I'm a hoarder of things in case they might come in handy some day.


 
As I implement this function by hand (using that sophisticated tool, Save As), I only make a new version when a siginificant change takes place.

As to finding old text, it isn't that difficult. But then I rarely do it. As I said, the main benefit of having multiple od versions is the freedom it gives me to change things completely without worrying that some wonderful phrase, paragraph or even scene (wonderful probably only in my own estimation) will disappear forever.



The oddest thing is that those George 3 days were in the late seventies, when we only had access to small and expensive storage**. Now, when we have gigabytes coming out of our ears, some people keep on working on the same old file for months or years.


** - I vaguely recall a visit to the company computer centre in 1979and seeing the removable hard disk stacks sitting in their washing-machine-sized drives (a large room full of them, in fact).


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