Writing your first draft is a labor of love.

I’ve suffered a horrible loss of my WIP, Beautifully Broken (Book 2 in the Destiny Series), yesterday. The file is corrupt. I’ve gone from 32,500 words to 15,000 words – and this is after I’ve recovered bits and pieces from emails, backups of my electronic notes and scraps of paper from the past three weeks that had yet to make it into the shredder. Maybe I should have renamed the story while I still had the chance. Would it have made a difference?

A nightmare is what it is.

I’m sharing part of my Prologue with you now, so you can see why I’m so devastated for losing over 17,000 raw words from my first draft. That’s a lot to lose at this stage of the game! Following is 1,355 of Matty’s words that I thought I’d lost forever.

Excerpt from Prologue

Even with my snow gear on, it’s frosty. The snow starts to rain from the heavens, covering the road with a wave of white blankets. Even with the hood of the truck blocking the wind, a blast of snow whips around it and slices across my face.

Felicia rolls down the driver side window and peeks her head outside. “Need any help under there? Whatever you’re doing, it’s not working.”

“I can always use your hands, doll. But not this time. I think I’ve got it. Give it another try.” I catch a look at her smile before she escapes from the blistery weather and reefs on the handle to roll up the window in the truck.

I’m still smiling, as she revs the engine in the aged truck. I knew it. I am the man. I hear a resounding wail of the horn and imagine that Felicia is celebrating, but then I jump from the loud crackle in the air. A resounding screech echoes through my ears and deafens me, as the hood seems to turn into the mouth of a crocodile and clamps down onto me like vicious jaws. The twisted wreckage wraps around me, and sandwiches my body precariously against my own truck.

Pain sears through my side and bolts right to my foot, as I gasp for air that can’t seem to reach my lungs. Starved for oxygen, dizziness settles in, but it doesn’t even numb the pain screaming across every inch of my lower extremities.

I’m moaning now. It hurts so bad. I don’t know if one can handle a pain like this. I think I’m going to die. That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea right about now. It feels like a waterfall of blood is spilling down my body and I’m suddenly very tired. I’m afraid to close my eyes though. I’m fighting for a breath as it is. If I fall asleep, I’m afraid I might forget to try and breathe at all.