This past weekend I was completing a back up to my portable hard drive when I noticed a folder with the name Compiled Drafts. The name didn’t ring any bells in my memory but I surmised it was the destination folder for when I compiled stories from Scrivener. That made the folder several years old as I changed my whole approach to manuscript generation and storage about three or four years ago.

When I looked at the contents of the folder it was like unwrapping a special present at Christmas.

There were thirty-four files in the folder. Some of the filenames I recognized as stories I’d written. Looking at them, most were partially completed – probably a version I printed out to work out where next to take the story.

Other file names were strange.

For example, the document A Higher Order didn’t even sound familiar. When I checked my stories master list spreadsheet, it wasn’t on there either.

So I opened the document and started reading. The story is about a librarian. And I have no recollection of writing it, although I must have done because my name is on the title page and in the metadata as the owner of the document. There were another six or seven stories like that and I’ve moved them all into my master list and story folder structure.

When I wrote in January about the number of unpublished short stories I had, these few weren’t even on my radar. Now I have more to consider and work with.

That’s the sort of problem I like!