It hurts but it does happen. First piece of writing that I was ever truly proud of ended up going missing through a series of unfortunate events. I wrote a short story about a boy discovering magic in music with each arc in the story written to parallel Vivaldi's Four Seasons in style and shape. I had a wonderful time writing it and by the end, I was beyond ecstatic to show it off.

Here's where my lovely life of accidents began to catch up with me. I printed out the piece to turn into a local competition for amateur writers and mailed it off, not really thinking about it for weeks afterwards (I usually like to take breaks after finishing a piece to gather my thoughts). After those weeks passed, I went back to my computer to do some rereading and maybe some more edits only to realize that a virus had corrupted a number of files and folders, including that story. Ah well, no worries, I always keep a backup of my files in a separate hard drive. From there, I started going through my desk to find it, only to realize it was gone. I inquired my dad as to what happened to it and he mentioned that he needed it for work and didn't think I used it so it got wiped. At that point I started to panic but was still somewhat hopeful I could retrieve a copy from the competition. From there I emailed my contact at the competition and spent two fitful days waiting for a reply. I actually ended up getting an honorary mention in the competition but they had somehow misplaced my manuscript and were actually intending on asking me for a second copy so they could publish it in their monthly journal...

So yeah, there's the short and not so sweet about how maybe eight people on this planet read one of the first pieces of writing I was happy with. Still, maybe rose-tinted glasses have since made it seem better than it actually was and it is better off living in my memory rather than on pages where I can find flaws.