Hi friends and Happy Wednesday!
Have you ever noticed when you really need life to go smoothly, it often turns upside-down? I was recently on a deadline. My final week was filled with sixteen-hour days, copious amounts of coffee, and truly frightening deadline hair as my family has fairly dubbed it. The tighter the deadline, the scarier the updo hair. It was during this week that the first of these incidents occurred. I’m using pictures from the most adorable notepads my daughter got for me to symbolize the emotions at each stage in the process.
First, I spilled scalding coffee on my lap and my laptop. Which did I move to save first? Being on deadline and the fear of losing my entire manuscript, I went for the computer first. In hindsight and with burns on my legs, that might not have been the wisest choice, but I reacted in panic. Clearly, I would never make it in the emergency services field.
My laptop was fried along with its power cord. I thankfully had the manuscript I was working on saved to the Cloud. It was literally the only doc I had saved on it. Praising God for that one. I managed to get my fried computer to run long enough to back it up on a hard drive. Meanwhile, the coffee literally percolated on the keyboard. Seriously. My laptop was brewing coffee. Only me.
Thankfully, my hubby had an older Mac I could use so to be a nice wife, I signed in as a guest user so I wouldn’t mess up any of his stuff. Little did I know that when you’re under a guest profile when you log off—nothing and I mean nothing is saved. All my revisions over the next two weeks—gone. But I had a zip drive where I saved everything or so I thought. My zip drive overheated and was destroyed. I kid you not. Now, I’m starting from scratch and have lost two weeks’ worth of work. And, to top it off, my printer went kaput today.
My hubby’s response:
Given all that’s happened, I can’t exactly blame him. I not only repel technology, I destroy it. So, here I am, starting afresh again. Praying for no more intermissions. But I have learned God’s still got this, and I strangely am not in panic mode about it. I know He’ll equip me with the words I need, and, on the bright side, I get to begin my new, organized document system from scratch that my awesome friend and fellow author, Jill Kemmerer taught me. Maybe starting over isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Reader Question:
How about you? For writers: any crazy deadline mishaps? For readers: has technology ever failed you?
Thanks for joining me this week!
Best,
Dani
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Oh. My. Goodness! Dani, this sounds like something only a fiction writer could MAKE UP. My heart was going out to you big-time even though I couldn’t help but laugh. Truth really IS stranger than fiction (and your illustrations are priceless!) Even so, I’m praying God multiplies your time as you get everything back the way it needs to be!
Thanks so much. I know. It sure sounds like something only a fiction write could make up. LOL! Thanks for your prayers as I work to get everything back how it needs to be 🙂
I know, right? It sounds like something a fiction writer could make up. LOL! Thanks for your prayers as I work to get it all back together. Phew.
My comments were delayed so you got two…well, now three responses. Sorry about that!
Remind me not to bring my laptop near you at the next writing retreat we’re at together! LOL! I can’t say I’ve ever been “a swirling vortex of entropy” before, but I am relegated to sippy cups after spilling my tea on my one-year-old laptop and ruining it.
No joke! LOL. I’m not even aloud sippy cups. Mine has to be on a completely separate table.
Oh my! How absolutely frustrating. Not to make light of your trials but when I had a particularly frustrating day at work (financial industry), I was venting to my youngest daughter, an RN, who at the time was working an ICU floor that most left in a body bag. She replied and said, “well Mom, at least no one died on you!” OK you win – and thanks for putting things in perspective for your mom! 😏
Oh, wow. That really does put things in perspective. God bless your daughter for doing that job. It can’t be an easy one.
Oh dear. Sometimes I wonder how it is that we don’t completely lose our minds. I’m glad to hear that you’re not panicking. It’s amazing what God can do when we just step back and let him do what he does best.
So true! I just need to get out of His way and watch HIm work.
Oh my goodness! How stressful and frustrating and panic-inducing. So glad you came through with your sanity intact, Dani. Whew! Praying that all the crazies are over and you have smooth productivity from here on out.
I back up everything constantly because I’m paranoid about crises like this. I’ve had mishaps where I accidentally backup the wrong direction and save the old version instead of the new. Nooooo!!!! And there was one time where my computer crashed and I came out from the bedroom to the living room to fetch my tech-savvy hero so he could save me. I was too scarred to form coherent sentences though. I just stood there saying. “It’s broken. I broke it. It’s broken. Fix it.” Unfortunately, not even my heroic tech man could restore what I’d lost, but thankfully it was only a chapter and not an entire manuscript. To this day, though, the “It’s broken. I broke it.” phrase has become a Witemeyer family staple to describe things when they aren’t working right. 🙂
Feeling lots of writer empathy for you, my friend, and praying for God to work this mess into something incredibly good.
Thanks so much, Karen! I love “it’s broken. I broke it.” being your family saying. Too funny!
Oh, Dani! What a nightmare! As sometime 3 weeks from deadline, I’ll be praying for you–and keeping my coffee way far away from my computer! 🙂
Thanks, D’Ann. Praying your deadlines goes very smoothly 🙂
Oh my goodness, Dani. My heart rate went up to exercising-on-the-treadmill speed while reading your post. I’ve had some crazy days and even weeks, but nothing like this.
I am paranoid, having lost a hard drive a long time ago. So I have two backup systems in place. My iMac backs up hourly to an external hard drive using Time Machine, and since my laptop desktop and documents are in the cloud, shared with my iMac, those go onto the Time Machine backup as well. Plus both computers are subscribed to CrashPlan, so there are also those backups in a different cloud.
Praying the coming week is mishap free. And that you won’t come near my laptop with a cup of coffee in your hand.
Thanks so much, Robin. Okay, I’m looking up CrashPlan right now 🙂
Oh, Dani! Those cartoon drawings in your post made me laugh but, oh, how I feel your pain regarding all of this. God’s got you!
Hey sweet friend! Thanks so much. It really is amazing the peace He’s filled me with. You’re so right. He’s got this 🙂
Oh my goodness. Hope you’ve gotten control over the inevitable hyperventilation! I was in the midst of writing my first book, a hot but worthwhile mess I nonetheless spent many hours researching and writing, when the computer suddenly crashed. Dead. Kaput. Tears. Lots of breathing into a paper bag. As the computer dude stood in our entry with the hard drive in his arms, I asked him to please save the audio file of the last phone call my husband received from his dad. My husband, however, said, “Just save the manuscript.” After so many years, the man is still a keeper.
Oh dear 😢 Praying for you right now!! That God will sustain you, provide everything you need with His limitless heavenly resources and send His angels to guard all tech stuff 😉
This book must be something really special if it is under such attack. Deut. 31:8 🙏🏼
Oh dear 😢 Praying for you right now! That God will sustain you, provide everything you need with His limitless heavenly resources and send His angels to guard all tech stuff 😉
This book must be something really special if it’s under such attack. Deut. 31:8 🙏🏼
Oh, no! That is my greatest fear. In college, a delicious cup of cocoa and my computer met. It didn’t fry it but the keys were weirdly sticky 😂 until the day it got replaced.
My tech hero of a husband has me linked up to Dropbox these days. I may hit save every time my brain pauses “just in case.” 🤪 Last week, his work computer kicked the bucket out of the blue, so it happens even to the most tech-savvy.
Will be praying for no more craziness.
Oh my, Dani! Speaking of stress levels going through the roof! Bless your heart! You have been sorely tested. Praying all goes well from now on.