Where I have been for the last month...

I would like to start with an apology. It has been a very trying time over the last month and I’ve been a bit lax with my blogging.

I lost a friend – my old computer. Well he wasn’t that old but he was familiar and safe and not backed up well enough.

He died mid Dr Who. I’m not sure what was most upsetting at the time; having to wait until the Saturday night for the conclusion to the episode or the fact that I could have just lost my entire writing career.

In the end it was the panic over my writing that won out, and it intensified over the following days as I remembered more and more stories and snippets stored away on the hard drive only.

Thankfully, it was discovered, by a very fabulous man, that the hard drive had in fact survived but the computer itself was lost forever. It was surprisingly easy to find a handsome slimline replacement. And then the initial fabulous man moved my hard drive contents to my new one.

In setting my new world to look and work like my old world I also managed to max out my download limit. Although I had everything back it was painful to even try to access the internet let alone do things on it.

By this point it was the end of September and I was highly traumatised.

I then had a week of complete relaxation with some friends interstate. Where I literally did nothing but shop, watch trashy t.v. and make a decent dent in Dance with Dragons (book 5 of the Fire and Ice series by George RR Martin). And that was a trauma of a different kind because I know he is going to kill off more of my favourite characters and I fear getting attached to anyone. (There is a whole blog post in that alone, I’m sure.)

I am now back to where I should be. Although a bit stressed about how behind I am with my writing, struggling to keep on top of my uni work and too scared to pick up the novel I’m reading.

I have also learnt a lot from this. The most important thing being: to back up, back up and then back up some more. It was only pure luck that the hard drive didn't die and I had visions of having to rewrite my current work in progress from the last print out I had – a very scary thought indeed.

I have purchased an external hard drive, I have some copies of the important stuff on thumb drives as well, and I am investigating cloud technology (although I’m not sure I get the process I can see the advantages).

After few deep breaths and saving everything to everywhere I can, I hope to continue with some more regular blogging from now on.

I hope you have all your writing backed up… Happy Scribbling