I don’t know whether to be angry at WordPress for losing what I wrote before I was able to save it or at my computer for contributing to the loss. Or, perhaps, at myself for being lazy and relying on the reliability of WordPress to look out for me, rather than creating the post in Word to start. Some people would say I should be angry at nothing and no one, that anger is an ugly and hurtful emotion. I am among “some” people, but in competitions between knowledge and emotion, emotion generally has the upper hand and a sharper tongue.
The problem with losing something I’ve written is that what I write tends to flow from my brain to the page without leaving a copy for later reference. If I write something I think it particularly insightful or if I find the structure of a particular sentence or paragraph especially appealing, I’d better save it quickly on the page because it won’t be available in my head for long.
Two days running, after I finished writing the day’s post, I tried to post it only to discover there was “a problem.” The draft did not automatically save as it should and, when I hit the “submit” button, it went somewhere never to return. No amount of “undo” or “go back” or anything else I tried recovered the lost words. They are gone forever.
Fortunately, I think anyone reading this post will survive the trauma, as will I. But, having experienced it twice, I believe I have learned a lesson. Either write in Word from the outset or, at the very least, copy and paste into Word before hitting “submit.”
