Okay...

...so I found two of the three files. They were the two I had done the most work on so now I've only lost like 45 minutes of work, at most.

Thank God!!!!!!!!!!

It's actually a copyediting test I'm working on. Funny thing: this past weekend I had an epiphany: McPolack is not, and was never meant, for a full-time career-type job. It only took me ten years of failures of varying degrees of misery and nearly four years with Chickenfucker, esq. (who definitely didn't see me as legit)to figure this out, as opposed to two or three lifetimes, so yay me!

My new plan is to focus on my writing and to find work to support me while I am writing a book. To that end, I contacted a friend with a baby to see about nannying (haven't heard back yet) and, when I went to that job interview I was dreading on Monday, I told the interviewer about my epiphany and asked if he had any freelance work. Hence the test. He was surprisingly understanding and actually pretty great -- his wife majored in creative writing in college, and she does marketing writing now, so he got some agency contact info from her for me so I can find freelance work.

So. I don't know if it's possible for me to stress enough what a breakthrough this is. It's a really, really, really good thing. It's tough, believe me, and I'm scared, and it's going to require a lot of trust, and a lot of stick-to-itiveness on my part, but I know I can do it.

Because it's what I was supposed to do, all along.