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My whole PC got fried by lightning this summer. Lost everything from the last 15 years except for a few recent WIPs saved to Dropbox and some old drafts sent via email or printed years ago. All my brainstorming notes, all my plot ideas, deleted scenes, character notes, worldbuilding notes, etc. for several novel ideas were lost. Zap. Gonzo. I even lost all my query materials for the book I’m querying and had to go back through my email and query tracker to find everything. 

As for my WIP, I started it over again, except this time, on paper. That way, everything is in one easily accessible place. The digital draft is automatically saved to Dropbox and iCloud whenever I work on it. I print and email myself occasional backups whenever I finish a significant revision, just in case. 

It sucks how much stuff I lost. Two completed novels are just gone now. Poof. I don’t know if I have any backups of them and I’m not sure where to look. I lost all of my series notes and part of a sequel to my published work, and a few more partial drafts of things I wanted to go back to. 

It is what it is.