ellenscult | Dispatches from the Zombie Underworldp

My laptop harddrive died. Actually, it was slowing up for a while, and I feel stupid that I didn't twig something was wrong. Or backup sooner. I think my backup is around 60 days out of date, which could be a whole lot worse, but not the within-7-days that I intended. Meh. That's on me. It took a while before I made it to the Apple store to find out it'd cost twice as much to replace their as a DIY fix. And by DIY I mean getting my husband to fix it. Alas, his torx screwdriver set was stolen by his ex-employers, but he got the caddy out anyway and a new screwdriver set is on its way. And then he tore a muscle in his neck which was agonising enough that I had to drag him to A&E for the GoodDrugsTM - a problem caused, again, by his ex-employers - so he wasn't in any shape to sort out my laptop for me. He's improving rapidly this time, thank goodness, and now I finally have a new harddrive on order to arrive some time next week *crosses fingers*.

I feel horribly guilty, though, because I have goodness knows how many email to reply to and I have a sinking feeling I didn't send the final email of a beta-read before my drive died, not to mention all the writing I haven't been doing. I suck. And not the fun kind. :(

I've been doing a little better recently, though - fighting the depression (not so much a black dog - Planck and Newton would object to that - as a cloying duvet of apathy) and making an effort to drink less wine, do more around the house and get outside more often. It's working, thankfully, but I'm way behind on my Christmas knitting. I am, however, working on the background and starting point of a new YA SF novel which I'm quite excited about. It's a bit of a jump to go from working by dictating to my laptop to making notes on my phone, in my notebooks, on Google Docs, etc. I have a tiny keyboard made for little elven fingers and my Yorkshire workaday stumpy fingers are a bit on the large side - though thanks to years of music lessons as a kid I'm adjusting to the change.

Anyway, I know a few of you have been in touch and I haven't responded, so I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still not dead yet, even if I'm a good 3 stone and an enlarged liver closer to it. I'll be trawling through my inbox over the next week or so, attempting to reply to y'all. Just so's you know - you're in my thoughts and hopefully soon I'll be able to let you know that properly!

Chag Sameach - Happy Chanukkah - for tomorrow and I'll be posting again soon.

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