Shortly after I was writing Literature & Latte, as I mentioned in my last post, concerning crossgrading, I made a huge discovery. See, I was digging around in my ~/Library/Application Support/Scrivener folder to find something license key-shaped to e-mail to them to justify crossgrading my license to Windows. But then, I stumbled upon a subfolder called Backups. And another subfolder called Sauvegardes, which is the French word for “Backups”. And in those folders, I’m seeing titles for projects that Dropbox ate. I only discovered the carcasses of the .scriv files a month ago when I tried to retrieve them. These files in the backup folder, though? They have actual sizes. Some of them are small (they were just ideas that had little to no writing, often just story development, character sketches, things like that) but some had a lot of heft. We’re talking megabytes, y’all.
Do I dare to dream? Did Scrivener actually save my novels that Dropbox ate? Let’s go over the forensics.
Paranoia Found… or how I’m managing the recovery after Dropbox fucked me over
Sure, I could trust Proton Drive alone – I’m actually paying for their services and they seem like honest folk. But the thing is, Proton’s big selling point is privacy-focused encryption so I’m not entirely sure how they can help me if my files get fucked. So, I’m making two copies of these project files after bringing them out of the Library subfolder. One goes to Proton Drive, where I’ll actually work on the recovery. The second goes to an external drive (which is basically the NVMe from my Steam Deck in an enclosure).
And now, it’s time to find advice on working with these backups to try to preserve as much work as possible.
So, what got saved?
It turns out… quite a lot, actually. So much so that it’s quite overwhelming and it’s hard to know what to work on first. Sixteen of which, I wasn’t actively working on or thinking about or developing.
Project Analogue
This is a high concept sci-fi project, though considering I’m planning on developing this into a trilogy… I honestly think that it’s worth developing this a lot more.
Project Banker’s Box
Only 274 words but it’s a tale of workplace drudgery, gratuitous violence, and a heist. I’m so interested in developing it.
Project Bed, Bloodbath & Beyond
This project is only a paragraph but vampire superheroes and police brutality? I’d be remiss to claim there’s not a lot of there there. Definitely worth developing.
Project Calgary
A very chick-lit romance, roughly 1,900 words written but I think the premise is worth writing out.
Project Pathogen
Despite the name, it’s actually a comedy. Only one sentence written, but there’s a premise there that I can feel.
Project Mariah Carey
This wasn’t a big loss, nor was it a great recovery. Project Mariah Carey is not a very well-developed project. In fact, I only wrote out the initial pitch. I don’t remember doing a lot of development on this so I’m not worried that I lost a whole lot of this novel. But, re-reading the premise, I can tell you that this is going to be a lot of fun to write out. In fact, I might wind up writing this over the holidays.
Project Maury
Yes, I named it after that Maury. This one is kind of a memoir. A sardonic, parodic memoir. I’m 4,419 words into it and honestly, if I can develop and publish the rest of these books? That’s the time it’d be à propos to write a comedy memoir.
There are elements that are parodic but there are elements that are kind of serious and sincere. I also made a couple of other attempts at memoir, so I might need to evaluate them.
Project Perfect School
This is actually an amazingly surrealist project, so I’m glad I was able to rescue Project Perfect School. There’s not a lot written but there’s a lot of character development, a lot of scene development… and I feel like this could be an amazingly chilling novel.
Project Service
This… is a short story. So, even though Project Service is only 1,200 words, I think it could be easy to assess, though it does have some development issues that need to be written.
Project Shift
I’m honestly not sure what to make of this one. But, considering the manuscript is currently at 13,760 words over 19 chapters? This one is definitely worth a read to explore the development potential.
Project Shoulder to Shoulder
Scrivener’s backup system preserved Shoulder to Shoulder very well in the backup folder. And considering I wrote 30,998 words of it, saving Project Shoulder to Shoulder makes me very happy. I could spin this into a nice sapphic romance pretty quickly.
Project St. Pierre
I only have 800-ish words on this one. However, a sapphic historic romantasy comedy? I’d be a fool not to develop this.
Project Target
This one is a cat-and-mouse thriller written from both the perspective of the FBI agent hunting an assassin and the assassin themselves. It’s also kind of a fucked up romance. 1,412 words written, so far.
Project Turkey Leg
This is honestly just a title and a premise but I think as a middle-grade detective novel, it has potential as a concept.
Project Vegas
Writing this is gonna piss me off. I wrote only 1,920 words of it. Honestly though, I think it has the potential to be a very fucked up Marriage of Convenience romance. Also, this one has something the others don’t… actual feedback from my then boyfriend. Which is a tough thing to reckon with emotionally.
Project Wiseau
Literally only one line. Not a whole lot there, but it does have some potential. Keeping it in my back pocket for development.
Project Wycaro
Yes, I’m naming it after that Wycaro. But this is actually the bones of a romantasy that I’ve been struggling with for the past month. Hell, I’ve written more towards the sequel to the rough draft I’m waiting to edit than I wrote towards Project Wycaro. But the predecessor to Project Wycaro has a shitload of character development, location development, and roughly 16,851 words written towards the screenplay version. I was actually writing it to be a visual novel at first. However, I wasn’t able to secure the funding for that, so I started the hard work to try to convert this into a novel.
Also, there’s so much there there that I also want to tell you about…
Project Wycaro’s Child
A sequel to Project Wycaro, with a lot of sci-fi bones to it. So far, I’ve written 11,529 words and done some character development on this too.
Project Wycaro’s Mother
Yes, a prequel historical romantasy to Project Wycaro.
So, what does this mean?
Purely speaking? Well, it means the choice of whether to go traditionally published versus self-published is largely decided now. In order for these projects to have the best chance to see the light of day this decade, it means I need to go self-published to develop, write, and publish the entirety of this body of work. I also want to touch on my rough draft, which I’m calling Project Ouzel. Apparently, it’s going to be part of a four part series and before you ask if this is a bit ambitious with all of… this, I will remind you that I drafted the 89,000 word rough draft of Project Ouzel in 24 days. Also, while I’m not actively focusing on the first sequel (Project Long) to Ouzel, it already has 1,048 words in spite of me not actively working on it.
So, yes, not only can I dare to dream… that’s the easy part. Now the work begins.
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