Like a phoenix

[loaded_march]

Since my last post, I got swamped at work, which, as usual, leaves me wiped out when I get home.  The amount of energy I have left is based on accrued interest, and I'm owing a fair bit to the pool, so I stare at my computer for a while, click a few links, and go to bed.

Very recently, there was a lovely lull at work, where I said something I haven't said in years -- I'm bored.  Not the bored where my job was dull and unengaging (which it isn't even on a bad day), but the bored where I've run out of work and I'm not entirely sure what I should do with myself.  Huzzah!  I get to go home with a surplus of energy to pay back the energy fund, and maybe get some writing done.  I know I owe a gluten-free, refined sugar-free brownie recipe, which I will post as soon as... well.  As soon as I get off my damn ass and get the hastily-jotted recipe card out of the tin.

But, yeah.  I can't have nice things.  My computer died.

Again.

That makes it twice in less than six months, and three times in just over a year.  In the last two crashes, I lost substantial chunks of writing stuffs, and, of course, the backups failed both times.  I even used different backup strategies!

Anyway, the frequency of the crashes and the symptoms were similar enough that I did the only thing possible: I bought a new hard drive, took my laptop apart, and replaced it.  I reinstalled most of the software I had before and from an old, old backup, have most of my files, but I'm sad to say that I lost four months of original fiction and fanfiction that wasn't also copied to my thumb drive.

Which was a depressing amount.

The long and short of it is that, after a period of mourning (and reorganizing my files into something that didn't look like I just shoved everything in the same folder and called it good), I wrote 3K of what might possibly be a Big Bang fic for aftercamlann.  I'm testing to see if it has legs before I sign up, though.

How has everyone been?

Comments

[amalthia]

That's rough losing your harddrive and all the data on it. :(

What back up methods are you using? I ask because if I'm doing what you're doing, I'm going to need to find something better. So far I've mostly been relying on Dropbox and I sync my data to my external drives once every other month. If you aren't already doing this, have you considered moving your writing folder to Dropbox, or some equivalent of Dropbox, so that your work is synced in the cloud?

Good luck on the big bang story and with your new harddrive!

[geekslave.livejournal.com]

Oh, no! I'm so sorry you lost so much work! *hugs*

Good luck with the potential big bang story.

Stacey

[matchboximpala.livejournal.com]

Seriously, that is the worst luck.

I use an external hard drive, too, but like amothea, I also use Dropbox, mainly for the six years of fanfic I have collected. I can't imagine what I would do if a computer crash wiped all of that out.

[side-steppings.livejournal.com]

What with not actually having a laptop at the moment all my stuff is scattered across two external hard drives, a USB drive, and google docs which is a bit of a nightmare to be honest!!

That's bad luck to have that many crashes though!!! Hope you sort it, and we'll all join you in mourning for the potential fiction!!

Yay for ACBB though! I love your Big Bang fics so I'm excited to see what you come up with :) I'm signed up as a cheerleader at the moment as until I have a laptop of my own I can't commit to writing but hopefully I'll be able to!

[velithya]

That is awful :( Not just the crash and losing your computer but losing four months of stories :( I hope that you have enough notes/memories that you can recreate some of what you've lost :|

[repna.livejournal.com]

Ouch! I'm terribly sorry technology keeps giving you the finger. Especially, as the mighty Frodo noted,



Here's hoping your new found boredom gives you writing wings, and all will somehow be good. Still sucks though.

And yes, sorry, but until you install an ironclad "I'll tell you if I didn't back up and verify your stuff last night with a blaring siren and annoying music"-double-backup system, the cloud is going to be your best bet. Make sure to use something with double authentication though, so stuff won't be so easily stolen.

[rotrude.livejournal.com]

Sorry about your computer; that's a pain. I've got WIPs on One Drive, but some other things have no cloud back up so I understand you and yor loss.

I hope your (maybe) acbb develops a chest and arms and a head.

[narlth.livejournal.com]

I feel the having nothing to do at work. I mean that's a good thing as tech support that means nothing broken but we literally watched Sharknado whilst on night shift.

Oh man that's such bad luck, hopefully that should be your last disaster. I second people about cloud storage. If it's security that worries you then on most things you can opt into duel authentication.

I would be excited if you did write for acbb, so I hope your muse behaves :D