‘Tis a sad day here at the writer’s desk.
I bought a laptop in the early 2000s, with the intent to use it as my main book-writing device. Even though I have a desk computer, the laptop allowed me to write on-the-go, between appointments, at a restaurant, or when traveling far from home. It still has Windows XP loaded on it, and some old version of Microsoft Word. The wireless broke on it ages ago, so I’ve been using a USB transmitter when I needed to connect to the internet.
This laptop has been my main writing device throughout much of the Earthrin Stones trilogy, all of The Widow Brigade, and has started all of the current projects that I’m working on.
When turning it on today, I had a brief view of a misaligned, pixels out-of-place, load screen before the glimmer left and it faded to black. Tried restarting it several times. Black as black…..dark as the void it has now left behind.
It has long been my habit to back up my work frequently. I have a USB stick and I went back to my last writing project: a character intro in Pilgrims with Blades. Yep, I saved it! Between back ups on the USB stick and my home desktop, it seems nothing was lost. With the price of repairs, I was willing to try disconnecting the laptop drive myself to hook it up and save all the data if necessary.
As a side note, that was the only computer in the house that was old enough to play Civilization 2 & 4. Sigh.
Although the writing work was saved, the laptop is lost. That laptop was a good trooper to survive 10+ years and however many miles we traveled together. Can’t afford a new laptop right now, so my writing will be confined to home for the unforeseeable future.
I will miss you, dear companion!