Near Disaster

A few months ago, the unthinkable happened. My computer shut off. That part wasn’t surprising. It had been on the fritz for a while. In fact, the power cord (Power Cord the Second) sometimes didn’t work and the battery had the lifespan of a fruit fly . . . in a jar . . . being shaken by a five year old.

So the power cord would be the slightest bit finicky and the battery would falter and little pink netbook would go black-screened. Fixing it was a matter of aligning the power cord with exact precision and turning the computer back on (hoping that nothing would jostle the cord that had been so carefully placed).

This time it didn’t work.

It turned on, but a screen came on saying there was a problem and inviting me to restart a different way.  I did.

Nothing was working.

Everything I tried led me back to the screen announcing there was a problem.

Now, I knew that little pink netbook was on its last leg, so I’d already planned to get a new computer. But I didn’t plan for such a quick crash. I hadn’t backed up my file for two weeks!

I have a friend who either likes computers or likes taking things apart (I can’t remember which), so moment later, little pink netbook is in pieces scattered across the living room. After two days of fretting, the files were finally retrieved. Thank goodness for friends who like computers or taking things apart!

Moral of the story: Backup! Backup! Backup! When was the last time you saved your novel on a source that wasn’t your computer?