Today's would-be entry highlights the need for me to write out ahead of myself.
Last night I opened my Dropbox to find out where the fiction was that I intended to post, and I discovered something horrible. I couldn't open it. Something was wrong with the some converter, and I'm sure it was some Windows or MS Suite update that now means I can't get to a bunch of my files. Including a couple of my finished hundreds-of-pages manuscripts. No computer in my house could open it either.
This isn't quite as epic of a tragedy as it might sound, but it is right on the cusp of Chris flips his shit and starts using incendiary weapons on marching bands and saying things like, "Only my weapon understands me." Most of those files are quite old--even before I was in school--and they would have to be majorly reworked anyway. I was also able to access the Dropbox files on my iPad, but Mac doesn't like MS Word very much and I will likely have to retype everything. It's better than nothing, but I'm looking at hundreds of hours to get back to where I was.
Hundreds of hours of labor....
I sort of get now why people who aren't computer gurus really swear by Mac. I know enough computer savvy peeps to know the appeal of non MacOS systems, but when it comes to people who don't intend to work outside the basic computer box, they work how they're supposed to work. It was the Evil Empire to the rescue this time. The iPad was the machine that did what it was supposed to do. I can at least read my files from there.
I don't really have the money to do spare, but I was considering getting a Macbook Pro to avoid this in the future. I have had a major data loss issue in my writing at least five times in my life, and Mac has consistently been the computer that did what it was supposed to (and conversely Microsoft has consistently been the computer that did not). This isn't about me failing to back up files or saving diligently. I have back ups on flash drives and externals in addition to Dropbox. This is some update that makes some of my files unreadable.
If Bill Gates walked in here right now, one of us wouldn't be making it to dinner tonight. Just sayin.....
Anyway, the point is, I want to eat the manly dude equivalent of a quart of ice cream (which might involve Carl's Jr. or something) and crawl into bed and weep myself to sleep. I'm in no head space to spend the couple of hours it takes to whip out a decent potpourri. So I offer you my apologies and the hope that next week will be better.
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ReplyDeleteI think a QUART of ice-cream is pretty manly. That's a bloody lot of ice cream. I am certainly not man enough to eat that much ice cream.
ReplyDeleteEeeeesh. Ouch.
ReplyDeleteWhat file format do you use for your writing? I've (mostly) avoided conversion and compatibility problems, even when moving files back and forth between Mac and PC, by backing everything up as .rtf files.
Without knowing exactly what the problem looks like, I don't know if this would be any use, but is the retyping something that you can use help with? I'm taking the summer off, so I've got some spare time I could chip in if you think there's something I could do to help out...