Fire engulfs home
It was a three-alarm fire, serious stuff, in a residential area of New Orleans during the day last week and Hodge’s house was burning fast. His girlfriend was home but got out safely and called to tell him of the disaster; he was a few blocks away and rushed home.
He did not just stand with neighbors and watch the fourplex burn. The 35-year-old had his laptop inside with his two unpublished novels on it and he couldn’t just let them go up in smoke. Not only were they unpublished but he hadn’t sent them to a friend for feedback or even emailed copies to himself.
One copy of each novel was on that laptop and nowhere else. So he ran fast. And make no mistake the house was engulfed in flames. Had something fallen on him or he became trapped he may not have lived to write another novel.
“Despite my better sense, I just ran inside and grabbed it. I didn’t think to be scared,” Hodge told the New Orleans Advocate. “Anybody that’s ever created art, there’s no replacing that. It’s got pretty much my life’s work.”
Lost manuscripts
The fire started in an abandoned home the neighborhood considers an eyesore. It spread quickly to the fourplex and both buildings, despite the best efforts of dozens of firefighters, were destroyed. Hodge, who is also an actor, and his neighbors, lost most of their possessions.
The firefighters did not okay what Hodge did but he went in so fast there wasn’t anything they could do. He was lucky to escape with his life and said the laptop was not damaged by the water that was being sprayed into the building.
By getting his work out safely he was luckier than many novelists who have lost manuscripts and never recovered them. That list includes Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, Robert Louis Stevenson and Ernest Hemingway.
Of course unlike Hodge none of those writers had the option of saving copies onto iCloud, which Hodge surely will now consider. And his next task after that? Maybe he should work to ensure that his work will never be lost by finding a publisher. And if he can’t he could even try self-publishing.
After all, if they weren’t selling he could have a…fire-sale?
