Lost (for) Words

I took my laptop on holiday and thought that I'd tap away in the evenings as we sat in the campervan and listened to the weather in North Devon.

Well, it all went according to plan and words were indeed written but then they cruelly taken away again. On the last day of the holiday my son knocked the laptop off a table, the screen went blank and the computer died. I know, I know - back-up, back-up, back-up and normally I'm religious about it if I do ANY work at all on my laptop. But, having forgotten the memory stick and having absolutely no access to Internet (I normally email work back to myself for double security), I didn't back anything up during the week.

It wasn't a huge amount - about 3,000 words - but those words were written at a particular time, in a particular place and with a particular frame of mind that will never all be replicated exactly. In other words, they're gone.

I've tried to be pragmatic and I haven't screamed and shouted - it's worse than being angry; I'm sad. Now, I just can't face replacing those words with others that just won't seem authentic somehow and I haven't written any more of the novel for about four days.

I know I need to just dust myself off and stop being so bloody stupid. They're not miraculously going to reappear and no one else is going to finish writing the book so I need to snap out of it...tomorrow...