I had written about 30% of the second Elcano book. This contained facts about the preparation of the Magellan voyage, arrival in Brazil, and the winter mutiny in a port in what is now Argentina and also fictional involvement of Elcano.
20,000 words saved on the external hard drive that I thought was safer than saving on my laptop's hard drive ( I once lost a large time-sensitive document saved on my hard drive when my laptop crashed).
And 20,000 words vanished when that external hard drive went screwy! All other files saved on that external drive are ok - but Elcano 2 now appears as a single blank page.
So, now I'll have to try to recreate the story which means that those readers who have been following Elcano Book 1 will now have to wait much longer than expected for Book 2. But I am determined to write it again and publish it when it's ready.
Mark