Editing Woes

This last week I needed to finish up some edits for my editor. I'm usually pretty good with track changes in Word, but this week I seemed to be technically challenged.

I was sending the first 67 pages to my critique partner to make sure I re-enforced the conflict at the beginning of the book. Not too hard.

No, but I made the mistake of forgetting track changes was on when I went to delete page 68 on, it did a line strike out. I realized the second it happened what I had done. So the mouse goes scrolling across the screen and....I hit the save button.

Why would you put the undo button next to the save button. Head hits desk.

Oh what a mess I created. I thought well I can just back it out and tell it not to accept the changes. That didn't work, while it restored all the file, all the changes I had just made to pages 68 to 140 were now gone.

I spent close to 8 hours redoing the file, thankfully one of my critique partners could be on instant messenger with me, so I didn't slit my wrists while I wrangled with the document trying to make it do the impossible, then to brainstorm with my when I couldn't think of another word.

All the changes are now made and the book back on its way to my editor. Lesson learned, keep multiple copies of editing progress just in case I make another track changes mistake.