Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose
Mystery, paranormal
Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing
Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Insiders blog. My name is J.Q. Rose and today I am confessing to doing something "stoopid" (stupid). I'm embarrassed to tell you. But I'll it share with you in the hope you will learn the lesson along with me. My piano teacher always told me it's okay to make a mistake, (like hitting the wrong key on the piano), but it's really a mistake to do the same thing over and over again. I hope I've learned my lesson and I will not repeat this blunder again.
<Taking a deep breath.>
Last summer I focused on getting my book manuscript for Terror on Sunshine Boulevard ready for my publisher, BWL Publishing. Needless to say, I spent countless hours on the novel writing, re-writing, and editing.
I worked hard on it and saved the entire manuscript file to my laptop, feeling very good about how I tied up the loose ends of the story. The next morning, I opened my laptop only to find I could not sign in to the old computer. I entered my password for this computer three times, but my programs didn't open. I shut it down, then tried again. Shut it down. Tried again. I couldn't believe the crazy thing wouldn't open. I remembered I had received several notices for an update and I had postponed them for the last couple of days, so last night I allowed the program to update.
Evidently, during the download, some glitch messed up the opening user program. No, I didn't know that, but that's what my brilliant computer geek guy, Luke, surmised when I dropped off the laptop to see if he could fix it. He told me sometimes this problem is a symptom of a hard drive crash. The hard drive is the place where EVERYTHING is stored.
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| J.Q.Rose cartoon designed by Miss Mae |
I left the laptop at his shop. My mind whirled with the possibilities of losing the entire manuscript. Dread swamped me when I thought about losing all the files for my published books and scribblings of other books and stories. Then the reality of losing all my photos hit me. I never back them up. Heat flashes took over my brain and it wasn't because it was 90 degrees outside. Worry. Worry that I would lose everything. I honestly thought my writing days were over. I couldn't sleep that night.
Later the next morning, my hubby Gardener Ted stopped at Luke's shop to check on the computer. He came bursting in the back door and announced. "Luke thinks he can get the files back!"
I shouted "hooray" and did a happy dance right there in the middle of the kitchen at that news. Sure enough, the next day, when I picked up the laptop, Luke told me he had restored all the files.
I feared to ask him how much I owed him. He said, "$35." What? Only $35.00? I could have given him a big hug and a kiss. (No, I didn't. I didn't want to embarrass him.) I practically skipped out of his shop with my darling laptop.
You can be sure my hubby Ted and I dug out our external storage drive and backed up ALL of our files on both laptops that same afternoon.
I think I'm doing well when I remember to hit save while working on a document. But I need to go to the next step and back up the document to another storage method.
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| Easy to save files to a flash drive/thumb drive. |
It's so easy to pop in a flash drive (thumb drive), save it to Dropbox, email it to myself. So many ways to keep a copy. Learn from my carelessness. Save your stuff!
Do you save your files and pictures to another storage area other than your computer hard drive? Have you lost files forever?
Please leave a comment below and let us know. Thank you.
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| Mystery author J.Q. Rose |
About J.Q.
When J.Q. isn’t writing, she enjoys photography, playing Pegs and Jokers board games, and traveling with her husband. They spend winters in Florida and summers up north camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter.
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