My current editing project is a family thing: my sister, who is a non-fiction writer, passed away in January and I offered to finish her latest biography of a Canadian mountain guide, which she’d described to me as 80% done (I’m doing this for free). But she had a HUGE problem with her files “duplicating themselves”–and the guide supplied her with tons of material that was hand written. She scanned all of that, too. Sooooo, I was rather daunted, to say the least, when I discovered the shape of her files. I’m sure she knew how they were organized…
Anyway, my brother-in-law moved into a supported living situation this month, so we were cleaning out the house to sell, and I found a binder with the most recent version of the book (identical to the one on her computer with the most recent date)–which ALSO had the guide’s corrections in the margins! YAY!!! I think the project suddenly got much more manageable. I’m about 90% of the way looking through that material, and I think it will help me to finish the book without having to sort through a pile of repeated documents.