I just permanently deleted a draft of a story from my computer. I spent ten minutes trying to get it back, but I can’t. I know that because IA Writer, where I do most of my writing, is explicitly clear about the consequences of deleting:
I lost an hour or two of work, which isn’t bad, but I lost work I really liked. That’s a bit harder to swallow because I’m not sure if I’ll recreate it the same way.
So how’d this happen? Frustration.
I was having issues with different versions of the file, and in my frustration I clicked Delete Immediately without even reading what it said. Can’t say I wasn’t warned.
But that frustration led to me losing work, which was even more frustrating. One spiraled into the other and next thing you know I’m cursing at my computer and frantically clicking things – which is how I deleted the work in the first place!
Frustration is unproductive. It makes things worse.