Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Crash

What do you think is the absolute worst thing that could happen to a writer?

Hint: look at the title of this post.

That’s right. Last Thursday, the worst of the worst happened to me. It wasn’t a complete crash, and I (thankfully) didn’t get a blue screen of death, but it did require me to restart my laptop back to when I first got it. I’m not even sure what happened exactly. When I turned it on, it wouldn’t connect to the internet. The wi-fi seemed broken somehow, although every other device in the house was connecting okay. The laptop just kept flashing “Can’t detect signal” (or something like that). The troubleshooting feature kept telling me to search for a new signal, except it wouldn’t do it. Oh, and here’s the kicker: Windows Help wouldn’t work at all either.

When help wouldn’t work, I got nervous since that really shouldn’t happen. So I used the restore feature on my computer. Except that didn’t do a thing! I was finally able to connect to the internet with an Ethernet cable, but Windows was still having trouble loading (big shocker). In the end, I had to…oh, it’s too hard to say! I mean write!…wipe the whole thing. Back to October 2011.

I lost a ton of stuff. My WIPs are all right of course. I have those backed up in like three different ways (as you should, too). But I did lose a lot of old stories that weren’t any good, but I liked to have for sentimental reasons (the short story I wrote for creative writing when I was a senior in high school!). Plus I lost my idea file, which had a bunch of random thoughts that I tried (and failed) to make into stories but maybe could have used in some way, probably not but still, I might have thought of something. I’m not too upset about that, but it’s still kind of a bummer.

The only thing I lost that I’m really kicking myself for not having a backup of is my file of Spam messages. There was about sixty of those that are lost in cyber oblivion, and I’m stuck without anything to post on the Spamfiles. So that sucks.

If you want to help me in my hour of need and can’t afford to buy me a new laptop, forward me some amusing spam messages you’ve gotten (click that link or the one in my profile!). Surely that’s not too much to ask!

And for your own sakes, back up your hard drives.


I’m going to go eat a gallon of ice cream.

7 comments:

  1. Oy. Crash (or theft) is every writer's nightmare. *shudders* (Thanks for the reminder. I don't back up as often as I should. Gonna do it right now.)

    Of course, who knows? This purge could help you move forward, once you've had time to get over the shock and the loss of a few precious items.

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  2. Oh no! So sorry!
    I just recently backed up my laptop files on another computer -- and emailed myself my current WIP last night.

    Forward spam to you huh? I hardly ever read them, but now I guess I'll have to peek at them!

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  3. Sorry you lost so much. Get an external hard drive and back up everything once a week.

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  4. Next time, before you wipe, take it in and have your data removed. There are a ton of places that can do that for you and some that will even do it for a reasonable rate.

    See, been there, done that.
    I know your feel.

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  5. That rates as a pain in the butt.

    I'll keep an eye on my spam notices for my own blog. There's some creative English there. If I see anything that works, I'll forward it on.

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  6. Yikes. I'm so sorry. And that reminds me. My laptop has been doing some funny things lately...

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  7. Writer's. Worst. Nightmare. So sorry that happened to you. Thankfully you have your current work saved. I'd have a heart attack if I didn't make backups often.

    Who knows, maybe this is the clean slate your creative side needs. I know you'll make it work. :)

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Please validate me.