Uncovering A Novel: Finding Old Writings from my Dad
For many years my dad was a dedicated writer, author, editor, and collaborator.
In the 1980s he attempted to make a career of it, contributing to local newspapers in Boston, helping friends craft and edit their novels, and even writing one of his own.
While romance novels weren’t really his thing, my dad worked closely with best-selling author Linda Barlow on some of her romance novels published during this time.
He even went so far as to write and submit his own to a publisher for consideration. It took a while for the publisher to respond with feedback but when they did it was positive. But by this time my dad had already moved on to his next writing project and wasn’t interested in making the necessary edits, choosing instead to focus on a new novel that he was much more passionate about.
I admire his level of determination to create and publish what he loved, but one can’t help but wonder what may have been if he had chosen to make the suggested edits and see that through.
After he passed away and my mom moved to a new house she came across some old floppy disks. And when I say old I’m talking about the 5.25-inch floppy disks from the late 1970s to 1980s!
There’s a total of three disks that seem to be in decent condition. It’s hard to say exactly what’s on them and if this decades-old technology has stood the test of time, but there’s only one way to find out!
Part 1: What’s on the Disks?
According to the labels the disks contain, “Personal Letters, Short Stories,” “Data Bank, Chapter E-5,” and “Back-up Mark’s Novel, Data Bank Chap. 6-10 (1st Half).”
Some of those short stories could be ones that were published in newspapers in Boston. There’s also a good chance that the novel referenced is what he was working on after the romance novel. Regardless, whatever is still accessible will be exciting to read.
Another question is how much content is on the disks?
When these Digital RX50K disks were first used they could hold up to 1.2 MB of storage. Fast-forward nearly 40+ years and most of the photos on my iPhone far exceed that!
With these disks being obsolete for many years it’s difficult to find drives that will accept them, let alone read and allow you to extract and convert the files into a format that is readable. I looked into some potential DIY solutions but this quickly exceed my level of knowledge.
I researched companies that offer these recovery and conversion services and found RetroFloppy in North Carolina.
My hope is that all the files are still accessible and we’ll be able to read some of my dad’s old writing. Who knows, maybe there’s even enough content to be able to edit and eventually self-publish the novel or some short stories - fingers crossed!
Part 1a: More Disks!
Shortly after publishing Part 1 of this article I was talking to mom about the project. She said she found an old box containing more disks - 13 in total - which was very exciting! They were even stored in their own special case so that should bode well for their condition.
Many of them have similar labels about short stories, novel backup and data bank. From what I gather, Data Bank is the title of one of the novels my dad wrote although I have no idea what it’s about.
According to the labels we now have disks with chapters up to 15. There are a few other disks that appear to be related so it’s looking more and more like there could be a complete book!
Beyond that, the remaining disks may include other chapters, new short stories and letters, as well as other projects my dad had written.
As excited as I was about having a few of these disks to review, I’m thrilled to have even more!
On Friday, March 4th I packed everything up and sent it back east to RetroFloppy for review. I plan on updating this post as things progress so stay tuned!
Part 2: Initial Disk Examination
About 10 days after shipping out the disks I received an update from David at RetroFloppy.
It turns out the disks are likely from a DECmate (Digital Equipment Corporation) system running OS/78 or OS/278. My mom worked at DEC back in the 80’s so it makes sense that the disks would have been written on a system like this, likely using the default word processor of that time - WPS.
Knowing where and how the disks were written is a key part of uncovering what’s on them. Because they weren’t from a PC it adds a layer of complexity and they weren’t able to retrieve individual files from the disks right away.
The good news is David was able to get the disks imaged and now has good digital copies. The next step from here is to engage some DEC experts to see what they can share about retrieving the files from the disks.
So, a slight bump in the road but still an encouraging update. More to come!
Part 3: A Novel is Revealed
Thanks to David’s code-cracking and resourcefulness he was able to decode all the disks and convert the files to Word document format!
Across the 13 disks he was able to extract about 200 files. There was everything from personal letters, business plans and memos to book summaries, character outlines and short stories, all dating back to the mid-to-late 80’s.
As I began reading through some of the documents I experienced a range of emotions. Despite years of hard work as a newspaper correspondent where he filed hundreds of features and news stories, as well as published various short stories, my dad was never able to sell one of his novels. This, as well as the fact that he’s no longer with us, made me sad.
But as I continued reading my sadness turned to pride and even excitement.
Pride in seeing how exceptional my dad was with the written word. It didn’t matter if it was a letter to a family member or a chapter of a book, no words were wasted as he painted a picture so vivid that you felt like you were in the moment yourself.
Excitement in finally getting to read some of the books my dad worked so hard on. I always knew he loved to write and had tried to make a career of it but it wasn’t something we talked a lot about and I never had a chance to read much of his work.
It was also quite a treat getting a glimpse into what my parents’ life was like when they were about my age and raising two young boys.
One of the stories in a letter to my Uncle Jim was particularly entertaining and all too familiar...
Scott is 5 1/2 now, Daniel 2 1/2 and we are having the usual sibling problems. Most of the time they are okay together, but every now and then, when our backs are turned, Scott will wham on Dan and swear his little brother fell down all by himself. Of course, Scott will be wearing this angelic look on his face the whole time he's explaining poor Daniel's "accident." It's really pretty comical...and looks very familiar. Pam did it to Mike and I, and I did it to you and Michelle.
Beyond the personal documents it looks like there are pieces of a couple of different novels, in addition to one complete mystery novel titled “Scull-Duggery.”
In a handful of pitch letters to literary agents my dad described the novel as follows:
The novel, SCULL-DUGGERY, is a whodunit murder mystery running 448 double-spaced manuscript pages. While working on a special research project at a university development office, 26 year-old Megan Farnsworth discovers that several members of the university's 1967 championship 8-man rowing team have met untimely deaths all across the country: boating accidents, car wrecks, suicides etc. Her suspicion is aroused almost at once, but can't imagine who would be killing off the members of a college crew team, much less why. Among the still-surviving members of the team are a prominent Boston banker, a U.S. Senator and a member of a well-known Cambridge think tank on national defense.
As her investigation deepens, someone tries to arrange an accident for Megan as well. Unable to get help elsewhere, she enlists the aid of a distant cousin whom she believes to be a Boston policeman, but who turns out to be a grizzeled [sic], alcoholic private investigator in his mid-fifties, who runs his not-so-thriving business from a rundown office in Boston's seedy Combat Zone. Together, however, the unlikely pair teams up to try and solve the puzzle before the rest of the men are murdered.
As I continue to read and sort through the files my plan is to piece together as many of the books as possible, starting and focusing on “Scull-Duggery.” Without getting too far ahead of myself, it appears as though my goal of being able to publish one of my dad’s novels isn’t so far-fetched.
I also plan on sharing some of the short stories and even some of the funny family happenings so others can enjoy them, too.
I would be remiss to not extend a big thank you to David at RetroFloppy. If it wasn’t for him these letters, stories and books would never have seen the light of day.
