Aack! Yesterday evening I turned on my main computer and the screen went black. Totally black. An eerie voice came through the speaker with something about the system failing a test. Remember to keep your work backed up, people!
I should be freaking out, but I'm not. My latest couple of novels are on my memory stick. Plus I have most of the stuff backed up (though probably the backups are a few months old). My daughters are a bit stressed that they might lose some of the music they've downloaded from iTunes. The most annoying thing is that I have to take time away from writing to take it somewhere to get it fixed (and pay for it). Time is always something I crave more of. It seems like I have less and less of it lately.
In the meantime, I'm back to working on my laptop. I had to do this earlier in the year for some reason (oh yeah, because the dog had surgery and couldn't go upstairs) and I actually got a lot done. I learned that a change of scene can perk up my writing, especially if it's a little harder to check my e-mail.
A computer breakdown may seem like an odd reason for setting goals, but nevertheless, here are my goals for the rest of November:
1. Finish first set of revisions of Novel #4.
2. Write a summary and one-sentence pitch for Novel #4.
3. Think of a title for Novel #4.
I could add "get the computer problems fixed", but that's not a goal. It's a necessary fact of life.
Can't agree more with the idea of backing everything up on a flash drive. At the moment, I actually have more memory storage on my flash drives than I do on drive C. When one computer self-destructed, and another just had to be replaced, the move to a new computer was painless. I also email my work to myself at a yahoo account for that purpose only.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your computer troubles. This happened to me a year ago, and with all the scary noises my computer is making these days, this is a good reminder to back up again.
ReplyDeleteHugs!
Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse
Definitely! Marcia, you sound like you have a pretty good system in place.
ReplyDeleteAngela, it's also a good reminder not to ignore those scary noises. Apparently, the problem was that my hard drive was failing!
My PC crashed in August just before my book launch. Talk about stress. Sounds like you're handling it much better than I did.
ReplyDeleteThe nightmare that hangs over us all anymore--the computer meltdown! My backup habits are not as strong as they should be, so thanks for the reminder...Hope you get your machine up and running here soon. And good luck with your November goals!
ReplyDeleteUgh! I hate when computers do that. My laptop Julian is on his death bed right now. So I'm definitely back up everything for sure.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have some great goals set up for the month. Good luck achieving them! I know you can do it. :)