currently struggling with the loss of my story

Personal spaces 👤 Creative Writing
,
1

i’m still pretty new to Ribblr, but i’ve received a lot of kindness and support from this community on a few of my posts, and thought this might be a good place to search for advice, ideas, etc..

for the last three years, i’ve been working on a fantasy novel. it’s been my main project for so long that i prioritised it over all my other creative works, like my crafting, my artwork and my fanfiction account. i wasn’t just working on a story, i was writing notebooks and lore journals on the side, designing locations and maps and creatures, exploring my characters and constantly developing them, etc—
this is probably the bare minimum when it comes to storytelling and world building, but this project meant the world to me and i always poured my heart and soul into it, even when i was having a creative burnout; it was my comfort, basically

to make a long story short, somehow everything got deleted off of the app i used for writing, and even though i backed up a few pages and files, it’s completely gone. besides what i’ve written in journals and saved in google docs/notion, of course, but that’s not even half of it :( it’s my fault, i know, and i feel so stupid for not backing everything up

i’m so sorry for this essay of a post, i just really feel empty without this project to work on — but i’m trying to just move on and redo the whole thing from scratch, trying to improve on the mediocre and make it better than before. if anyone has some advice for starting over, or ways to keep motivation going, i’d really appreciate it <3

18 Likes
2

Oh my godness I’m so sorry! I feel you, I made a little story (that was important to me) for my bestie and she lost it, so I was so angry, but also…extremely upset. (@CROCHETERLENA I’M TALKING ABT U) but, then I wrote another version and…SHE FOUND IT AFTER ABT A MONTH. I readed it whole, but realised I don’t like it. But, I understand, that there is probably no chance of getting it back and I’m really sorry for you. I recommend writing everything in a journal/diary and then re-writing it into an app/anything else. (This is how me and my bestie do it) if you’ll ever need to talk, feel free to DM me​:people_hugging: I would love to read it, lol

6 Likes
3

thank you so much, i can understand being upset about your friend losing something you wrote for them <\3 that’s happened to me before

and i’ll definitely be writing everything in notebooks for a little while before i trust apps again hhh thank you for the offer, i’ll definitely message you (if i remember, i have bad memory !)

5 Likes
4

But, to not be so mean on her, I wrote it for our story, that we’re writing and she lost it, so it wasn’t that :sparkles:important​:sparkles: I was just proud of it.

5 Likes
5

awh, i understand !! as long as you’ve worked it out then that’s all good, but i can relate to you being a bit upset :] it’s really neat that you’re writing a story together !!

4 Likes
6

Yup! It’s rlly fun, but it’s more like she writes it all and I’m hrlping her develop the story, I edit her typos and alao write some short parts that she can include there :D

4 Likes
7

that sounds so fun !! i’m sure it’ll turn out brilliant <3

4 Likes
8

Oh gosh im so sorry :disappointed_face: that would be absolutely devastating…thats such a crappy thing to go through :pensive_face: i guess the only advice i have is 1 take a little you time to do something else if youre not ready to write again :two_hearts: but since you worked so hard on it and put so much love into it im sure in acouple of months you’ll get back at it and starting writing it :pink_heart: and 2 you should get a acouple notebooks from the dollar store :smiling_face: they’re a saver for me when i write :sweat_smile: its overly messy and such rough copys of everything but at least if you have a creative spark you can write it there without the worry of loosing any of your work :smiling_face:

4 Likes
9

thank you, i’m definitely going to be grabbing some journals and notebooks when i get the chance <3 i’ll probably take a break from my hobbies for a few days to just to get my thoughts together

4 Likes
10

I’m so sorry!! That must be so painful, I hope you can remember some of it or write something else great!

2 Likes
11

thank you, i’ve been working on this story for so long that it’s ingrained in my brain, so there’s no way i’ll forget anything major <3

1 Like