Ah Technology

I am a fan of technology, particularly the kind of technology that allows me to write pages of manuscript, then go back and edit one word without retyping the whole damn page. Who wouldn’t love that?

However, I’m not a fan of fragile technology. You know, that kind of software that insists you do things a certain way, although they don’t always tell you what that certain way is and when you don’t do it, you get the silent treatment.

Or the “Non Responsive” treatment.

I’ve been fighting a problem with my netbook. Perhaps it stems from overuse, because to be honest, I’ve not been doing a lot of writing on “The Big Beast” mainly because Tam bought a laptop and we’ve been sitting in the living room enjoying being together while doing stuff on our computers.

The family that geeks out together, stays together, right?

Anyway, my netbook, my precious, my Baby Beast, began exhibiting some strange behavior. Glitches here and there, things not quite running as smoothly as they should, not the usual MS headache-inducing nonsense I’ve had to endure. This stuff was different. Word, my go-to word processing program, began showing a message right after I clicked “save.” It would pretend to think about it then I’d get a spinney thing. About that time, I’d look up at the top of the document only to see the words “non-responsive” in parentheses.

While this would make me crazy on regular days, it was doing it to my manuscript right during the part where I was finally having some kind of breakthrough on the editing wall I’d been butting my head against for the past three weeks. (In case you were wondering why I’ve been a bit on the absent side of the internet lately).

Seeing that message right after an hour of pushing and shoving words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs that flow and have action and move the story along in a logical and pleasing manner. An hour of this bullshit and my computer decides to become “non-responsive.”

Oh no it di’in’t. Oh, yes. Yes it did.

In what I feel is a brilliant saving move on my part, I immediately emailed the document to myself, opened it, and found that it HAD saved it and all was well. I’ve since opened it on the Big Beast and there it will reside and be edited and caressed and cuddled, and beaten into publishable submission by the bloody tips of my fingers.

WHAT?!?

Oh, sorry. It was not a good start to my day.

Now Baby Beast is visiting Dr. TechnoHero where there will be diagnosing, cleaning, backing up, and other non-shenanigans going on while I sit and worry that they’ll find out I’m using an archaic version of Word and I’ve lost the original disks and can no longer install it. I just discovered that little fly in my ointment this very afternoon. The place where the disks used to reside no longer exists. It went away when the man moved out. He assures me he does not have the disks, but they’re not here, so I fear they may have been thrown away or given to Goodwill in a box of left-overs.

Really, just kill me now. Here’s hoping Dr. TechnoHero will overlook my idiocy and show much mercy. I don’t know how, but I’ll keep hoping.