I know, it’s happened to all of us, and the story is always the same: Working away diligently on trusty (they ARE trusty?) computer and then, out of the blue, the ap crashes, the screen does something wonky and the heart skips a beat. Perhaps a restart? Oh, it won’t reboot? So, hearing the restrained despair in my voice over the phone, my Mac Guy made a house call, brought my laptop into his laboratory and gave it an MRI or whatever he does. Diagnosis: the hard drive crashed, unrecoverable.

Thus began a couple days in hell, particularly since it was two days before Thanksgiving, I live in a small town and the stores don’t carry Mac products. I don’t know about you, but my computer problems always happen during the holidays.

I mean, I am in a bad mood, so don’t get light-hearted with me!

Did I back-up my files you ask? Yes, but it didn’t save me because it wasn’t elaborate back up. Examples: I lost about six hours of work on the novel,  my entire address book, all my bookmarks and my custom dictionary on a four-book series. Who knew that when you back up your email (which I did a couple weeks ago,) it does Not back these other things.) All this trouble, despite the fact that I back up my work twice a day onto two flash drives, having finally sworn off finicky CDs. Oh, I thought I was so thorough! Nope. For a writer, this is just not good enough.

On a borrowed external hard drive, I am back on the novel.  So I am at least in business, of sorts. So, penitent, I have solemnly taken stock of my back up practices. I am going to get an external hard drive and continually back up my system and files in their entirety.

I suppose really smart people already do this. Happy Thanksgiving. I give praise to my Mac Guy.