I thought I would share a bit of hard learned advice: if you write longhand in a notebook or on loose sheets or whatever, make sure you type them up as you go along
Every once and awhile I find myself unable to wrap up a story, and writing it out longhand actually makes it easier for me. I think it might be because there's no real room for me to stop and edit things as I'm going so I just kind of let my thoughts flow straight onto the paper. It really helps me get passed scenes that otherwise might catch me up.
Unfortunately, my Dad made me ride somewhere with him and I forgot my folder in his car. So he, being the guy he is, when he found the folder a couple of days later, didn't say anything to me. He just brought it into his house and had it sitting around for several days. Then somehow it ended up in his firebox, and from there it ended up helping start a fire. He never even opened it to see what it was.
Like 20 pages of story just POOF! gone forever.
The worst thing? That this has been like the second time I've had this happen to me.
The first time I was rushing off to work and I had a fever and was completely out of my head and I put my clipboard on top of the car while I put things in the backseat. Then I hopped in and told my mom to drive and that was that... The clipboard was lost and gone forever.
I need a keeper or something.