Kage Baker was deathly afraid of losing her stories.

She was a bit of a packrat by nature, hating to let go of anything she had ever once loved. A great deal of her adult life 9and earnings) was spent replacing dearly beloved books, games, toys, films, candies etc., that had vanished into the mists of time. I was was perpetually amazed at the number of things she did indeed manage to find again.

Ultimately, I was also fairly appalled. Most of the trove is now in boxes in my storage unit … and, in fact, most of the boxes in my storage unit are the trove,

She had good and valid reasons to fear losing her stories, though. She liked to keep her notes in legal steno pads or loose pages of typing paper, crammed into and around her desk so as to always be in reach. Some of them inevitably fell victim to mice, cosmic rays, very localized fires, being inundated with Coca Cola (disastrous if you write in Higgins Black Erasable Ink) and being accidentally swept into the trash when she was forced to clean up the mess that was her desk.

Kage also had frequent quarrels with her electronic media. She had a tendency, in the earlies of her computer use, to yank pertinent things out of the disk drive without closing them. I’ve resuscitated every kind of data storage dating back to 5-inch floppies.

Despite these little problems, Kage rarely lost a story or plot idea permanently. I have been rather proud of myself these last 4 years,because not only have I not lost anything, I have found several things even I did not know about.

I’m still perfect where Kage’s stories are concerned. But I have misplaced the  progress to date of “The Fog King”. The story is based on one of Kage’s ideas, part of the mythology of the Anvil of the World universe; I wrote what there was of it so far …. and I think some of you, Dear Readers, read it.

Does anyone remember reading it? Did anyone save a copy? Can anyone remember where I sent them to read it online? Did I email it to any of you?

Please oh please: if any of you Dear Readers have any of it, send me a copy! I am losing my mind, and have clearly already lost my grip. My email, should someone find a bit of the story, is materkb@gmail.com.

In the meantime, I shall continue hunting through all the USB drives I brought with me to the wonderful Green Gables Inn, a B&B in Pacific Grove where Neassa and I are having a writing weekend … which would be working even better, had I remembered where to find what I meant to write.

In the meantime, though, the search through the USBs has already yielded notes on a story about Smith, Lord Ermenwyr and a trip to the hardware store. Kage tried to never throw anything away … and nuggets like this are worth every old Altoids tin full of ticket stubs from Grauman’s Chinese.