I just wiped out my past. I’ve been trying to get my computers switched over to the new high speed system which involved switching e-mail providers which involved making sure the new e-mail account worked just fine on both computers, and then without thinking I deleted the old account from both computers. And lost every e-mail I ever sent or ever received on that system including every single e-mail Bob and I exchanged during the last year. The e-mails that were going to remind me what really happened for the book we were going to write based on the 2006 He Wrote She Wrote Blog. The e-mails that I was going to put into the book to show the behind-the-scenes stuff. Those e-mails. They’re all gone. I deleted them. There were hundreds of them. Most days we’d do fifty or sixty. Even if we were on the road together, there’d be twenty or thirty once we were in our rooms for the night, working on something, catching up on things, trying to figure out what city we were in. Most of them weren’t memorable, but some of them were. All the stuff we didn’t put in the blog, every negotiation, every fight, every minute of brainstorming Agnes, every detail was in those e-mails. I deleted every damn one of them without thinking. In fact, I think I just deleted our book. I e-mailed Bob. Yes, I see the irony. He e-mailed back, “Nothing but good times ahead.” I think maybe he’s thinking, “Thank God.” A lot of that stuff he probably didn’t want to relive, and he probably didn’t want me reliving it, either, sending him e-mails out of the blue, saying, “Oh, yeah, now I remember THIS, you rat bastard.” Maybe I don’t, either. That was a tough, tough year, worth every minute of it, but still it damn near killed us. Maybe stumbling down a memory lane full of craters from all the bombs that went off the last time we went that way wasn’t the best idea to begin with. It would have made a hell of a book, but on the other hand, who really wants to know what two writers did for a year? We thought it was fascinating but it was about us, of course we thought it was fascinating. And now that’s something else off my To-Do list. I haven’t read over the blog, maybe there’s still a book there without the e-mails, but I doubt it. Anybody who wanted to read it, read it the first time through. There probably wasn’t a market for it anyway. And I have fiction to write. My subconscious probably made me delete it since I did it on both computers in the space of about thirty seconds. I cannot believe I deleted our book.
23 thoughts on “There Goes Memory Lane”
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I hope this isn’t a repost–I appear to have an extremely annoying phishing filter, which I hope I have turned off.)
If you want to override your subconscious, turn your computer over to a tech. There’s a reasonable chance the tech will be able to get the e-mails back. Do it sooner rather than later to avoid overwriting, though.
Good luck!
Your ISP probably has them in a cache somewhere. Horrible experience though.
Jenny, I am so sorry this happened. The emails cam probably be retrieved (something as simple as checking the trash file ?) but that is probably not much comfort right now. Major, major ARGH !
If the files aren’t in the ‘Recycle Bin’ you can download programs that will restore the deleted files. Windows also has a restore program, but I don’t know how it works all that well.
Here are some places to find help:
Google Search: Call For Help
Google: Restore deleted files or programs
This guy used to have a show on DirecTV’s TechTV network (Now G4). He’s the perfect person to email and get help from:
Leo Laporte
Leoville Town Square (Forum)
I think this is a definite time for a Poor Baby.
It makes me sick just thinking about it. We got to read some of those exchanges on HWSW – they were fab. Dont you have one of those wonderful little memory sticks (look a bit like a vibrator except they dont come with bateries…or vibrate) with your things backed up?
How awful. Poor Baby 🙁
Oh Jenny, how painful. I understand why you want them. I keep telling myself that I have years of diary entries in my Sent Mail bins, if I ever take the time to go through them, but if those accounts are ever zapped, my history is history.
Indeed, Poor Baby.
Cherry Beach
Well, shoot and damn.
I agree with the others, your ISP or a tech savvy guru should be able to find those email for you either on the computer or possibly their server. Give it a try!
We really wanted to see that book!
🙂
I really hope you are able to get your files back. My hubby, The King of Geeks, said there is a good chance. Poor baby, tho. It must be traumatic!
Poor Baby. I hope you find them. If nothing else to tourture Bob with.
Hi Jennie,
I am a new reader of yours and I really enjoy your stories.
I hope you will find back your e-mails. It would be too unfair for your not to have them back considering they mean so much for you.
Anne
WE would read whatever you wrote, so I hope your messages are recovered! On the other hand, if they’re not, that’s one less thing on your To-Do list, and maybe it’s not something you would learn a lot from re-visiting. Anyway, Poor Baby, and best of luck!
Kyra, we’ve been missing you over at the CB Bar & Grill. I hope you’re well, things are progressing nicely, you’ve just been too busy to play.
Delete is the equivalent of tossing something out the window. Its much harder to find now, but it still exists.
There are “go back” programs that can find stuff and/or a comp geek can probably retrieve a lot of it.
Are you sayin’ that Bob didn’t keep his copy of the emails?
Poor baby! I had a freebie account for years that one day wouldn’t let me in, and since it was free you can imagine how responsive customer service was. It was very disconcerting even though I knew huge chunks of it was likely junk I didn’t need.
Oh, Jenny, my fists are clenched, and a solid “OH, NOOoooo” and poor baby, for you. That just stinks.
2 words:
Data revovery.
Do what everyone else said and find someone to get your e-mails back.
And don’t press that button again.
can’t trust some people alone for a minute…
Poor baby. The question becomes do you want to retrieve the emails? I’m reasonably sure some Tech God could do it.
I think there are enough people beyond the Cherries and CBs who would buy the behind-the-scenes book of LTD. The intial book tour post was an eye-opener.
I would be shocked, “Shocked, I say”, if Bob kept his emails. Men prefer to live in the moment, then move on. Or so a man with whom I correspond regularly just told me. He never keeps his emails.
Just another tip to add to the “recovery is possible” thread… ask your ISP how to set up your account so that messages remain on the server. You can read your messages in any mail client, but they will stay on the server so you can’t delete them permanently by accident.
Poor Jenny,
There was gold in tham thar e-mails. And probably something to blackmail Bob with. And although I would be first in line to buy that book, you may be right about keeping some things buried. As long as you keep your collaboration with Bob its all good.
If you need any more sympathy, feel free to come over to the B&G. We will be happy to commiserate with you some more. That is what we do best.
enny,
I hope you decide to try and recover the e-mail file.
Yes, we read the HWSW blog as it was happening, but we know there is more to the story, and we’d love to have the opportunity to read it.
It must be going around. Like a cold or a flu. I wasn’t doing anything in particular, but my mailer ate all my old email last week. All of it. All my folders, all my received mail, all my things that I needed to get back to.
I figure if anyone asked me a question I was supposed to answer, they’ll ask it again. *shrug*
It was still annoying, but I’ve moved on now.
ut don’t you feel like someone just lifted a 20-lb weight off each shoulder?
Every time I read that you were going to maybe write a book about the last year I thought, “WTH is wrong with them? It wasn’t bad enough to live through it, they want to re-experience it in book form?” I mean, for the rest of us it would be entertaining as hell, but for you? Maybe not so much.
Besides, I have a feeling that you’d never share the really good emails anyway. And we’d always wonder…
Some things are best left to the imagination. Really.
It wasn’t just a book about two writers, Jenny, it was a book about you and Bob. Sign me up on the “would have read it” list and issue me a club card.
Then again, do the children really need to know the minutia behind each parental fight?
I’m just a nosy person, so yes, I want to know. Just because I want the chocolate cake AND the box of raspberry truffles doesn’t mean I should get them.