Outline, Introduction and Chapters 1-2

I have completed about 2/3 of the comprehensive outline that I have been playing around with for the past few days.  I grew bored soon, however, and turned my attention to revising my the introduction, and first two chapters, to better reflect the new outline and its superior organisation. 

In my enthusiasm, I had initially rushed headlong into the memoir, sketching only a very loose outline and, not surprisingly, as I trudged along, I found that my hasty effort was inadequate.  This caused much anxiety, and I finally resigned myself to starting over.  I was stressed because I only had one copy of the first draft that I had turned out of the introduction and Chapter 1, and this last copy was in a file format that I could open, but not edit, which left me with no choice but to re-type it.

The truth is that I was fortunate to be able to retrieve that copy from my e-mail.  Over a two-week period, I broke my external HD, my jump drive died, and the computer that I am using needed to be re-formatted.  I suddenly had no data, no resumes, no work.  What I had done was gone.    Somehow, I managed to resurrect my thumb for just long enough to transfer my resumes, which I am particularly grateful for because I would not want to have to redo them. 

I used this opportunity to completely overhaul what I had written, and plot a clearer course.  I am happy that I did, and am now in a position to just follow the outline and tell my story.  I'm looking forward to this more than ever now.

CJ