How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 3

Something else died this summer. My beloved Mac. If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you’ll know I’ve had issues with my Mac, really the first time I’ve ever had a Mac act up and I’ve owned one since 1986.

This would make the fourth time in a year my Mac would have to go in for repairs. After the last time, I was told by the technician that if anything else happened, to let him know and he would make sure I got a replacement machine. So when the hard drive went out AGAIN I called Apple. (Note: normally I don’t buy extended warranties, but in this case, buying the three-year Apple Care warranty has been a very good investment. With all the beatings laptops are subject to, I think it’s practically a requirement).

While the technician on the phone couldn’t authorize a new machine, she referred me to Customer Relations. There I was able to convince them that being without my computer, which is my only way of making a living at this point, was extremely detrimental to my cash flow, and given how much time Apple had already had this computer, it was time to give me a new one. They agreed and within two days I had a brand new MacBook Pro. Top of the line. Now, my G4 Powerbook was three years old and they don’t make it anymore. So to give me a machine with the equivalent screen size (17”) and backlit keyboard, I had to get a brand new one. Needless to say, kudos to Apple for doing the right thing.

The downside was, even though I tried to back up everything as much as possible, I still lost some data. Mostly pictures as far as I can tell. The good news is, the newer, faster machine would come in handy in ways I couldn’t imagine at the time. Which I’ll talk about in Part 5. Even in the midst of something that was hugely frustrating, God was working in ways I couldn’t see.

Long Time No Post

Sorry I've been letting my blog get dusty. I was trying to get my entry done for the Genesis contest of ACFW.

Also, our dog, Charlie, had surgery on his ear and has a conehead now. I should post some pictures of him.

And I got my Mac almost fully restored. I was so happy to get my pictures back, especially the ones from our trip to Chicago and Indiana.

I particularly liked this picture I took of leaves frozen in Michelle's pond.

Finally, when I converted my blog to the new Blogger version, it lost one of my RSS feeds. The one with the most subscribers. So, if you were one of them, you'll need to resubscribe to the other feed.

I'll try to be a better blogger, but no promises.

Happy April Fools!

While I’d love to play some sort of April Fool’s Joke on you all, I don’t have the brain power. However, if someone has a good one to relate, from this year or years past, please tell us about it in the comment.

I did get my Mac back. It now has a new hard drive. And I have the arduous task of sticking all the stuff back on it. But I’ve been busy with a couple of writing projects, namely a novella proposal I was asked to be part of and getting one of my novels ready for the Genesis. And since the restore process is time consuming and doesn’t allow any other applications to be open while it’s running, I have to wait until I’m not working on something to start restoring. Sigh.

On another topic, I ran across this article by Neil Gaiman in my RWA eNotes. In it he talks about the question he gets asked the most: where do your ideas come from? It’s a great short discussion on the creative process and makes the point that ideas aren’t really what make a book. Something writers get but normals don’t.

Also I was gratified to see he had the same experience in his child’s classroom that I did in my daughter’s last year.

But then there was this awesome quote near the end of the article.

My idea of hell is a blank sheet of paper. Or a blank screen. And me, staring at it, unable to think of a single thing worth saying, a single character that people could believe in, a single story that hasn't been told before.

Staring at a blank sheet of paper.

Forever.

Reminds me of Mike Snyder’s post at the Master’s Artist last Thursday.

Which was kind of timely for me because for the novella project I was given a location, a date, and a character. That was it. And I had two weeks to come up with a synopsis and a first chapter. It was a new experience for me. And because I like to plan and plot before I write, it was pretty scary to just write. But I came to the same conclusion Gaiman did: the ideas are there and I don't have to worry about running out of them. That was pretty freeing.

Angie at Infuze

Fellow Misfit Angie Poole has her story, "A Stone's Throw" up at Infuze. It's a great example of her pink collar drama. I just love her voice. So go read it; you'll be glad you did.

Update on the Mac:
Still not working. I did recover and backup all my files but I still have some corruption on the hard drive. Trying to determine exactly what it is before I call Apple. AGAIN. Sigh.