About three years ago, I accidentally deleted all of my in-progress stories. Included among those were Accidental Research II and two other stories, thus far known only to me as "#6" and "#7" (following my chronological naming convention). Fortunately, I recovered most of all three stories using some hard drive recovery software. I completed AR2 in '07, and have unofficially given up on #7 since I never really liked its premise.

#6 has been an on-and-off project for me since 2006. Since it is another entry into my line of more "experimental" inflations, it has required more thought than the standard "oh noes there's an air hose blowing me up" kind of story we've all read a thousand times. More thought usually means less motivation, and so, by and large, up until a couple months ago it had not changed much from its recovered state. Still, I think the idea behind it is fairly unique and I can't wait to finish it. (Well... I guess I CAN wait.)

Two or three months ago I got the itch and completed a significant portion of #6, as well as reworking a few things here and there to make it a better story. I would say that it was 90% complete overall, and I was really starting to like where the story was headed.

Then my laptop got stolen. My last backup was from December '08, meaning I've lost all my recent progress on the story.

Maybe this is a sign that I should give up on the Little Story That Apparently Couldn't. Maybe that's the title I'll use whenever I finally finish it. Maybe I should just post what I have and explain where the plot goes after the story ends.

/frustration