Flash and Drives

The word "Flash" is something of a misnomer when connected with "drive."  
     Last fall I got a cute little blue and silver flash drive in my goodie bag at a writers' retreat. I’d been saving mine for a worthy project, and last night I found one. After I copied stuff onto it from my desktop, my Macbook Air wouldn’t even acknowledge its existence. Furthermore when I removed it from the USB port, my whole Documents file was empty!!! I restored old files up through this March with an old red plastic flash drive and wasn’t quite as unhappy. 

     On that note, I went to bed. 

     This morning I determined to nail the sucker! “Something” probably happened when I tried to “restore” backups from my desktop’s Time Machine’s Seagate drive onto the Air last Sunday--as a way of moving files. There is a neat and elegant way to do it that I couldn’t remember and ended up throwing up my hands. After futzing for 3/4 hr. I determined that the “new” blue and silver drive was a dud. Neither computer would admit to its existence. I tried using Disk Utility/Verify Disk—nada. The old cheapo red flash drive works like a charm. Thinking I may have accidently deleted all my Air's Documents, I looked in the Trash. Nada. I restored a few more files with the old Flash drive and played around with the Air. 

     It blinked—and all my lost files appeared in place! 

     Thank you, Deus ex Machina also known as God of the Machine. 

Yet Another Sunny Day - Breakthrough!

In Memoriam - Blackitty

     We will be glad of all this sunshine when el nino hits.
     Just 'cause I haven't been posting doesn't mean I've been idle. I've written something nearly every day, even if it's just a sentence or two. A family member's health problems have required nearly all my time and wiped me out. And I've had to handle it without the comfort of a warm kitty. Our beautiful big sweetheart disappeared one morning 3-4 months ago.
     It's taken me 2 1/2 weeks to recharge my energies, and the chapters I was working on didn't help. My hero was trying to overcome drug addiction, and some not-so-nice folks strapped him to a bed. To write this passage, from his point of view, I had to live through my feelings after a bad fall--lying in the ER, endless waiting, nobody coming, morphine, helplessness, weird dreams, surgery, a rehab facility, inability to move... I dreaded writing it and could only manage a short paragraph or two a day. My trusty line editor said I'd done a good job. Now my hero is back on his feet, confronting enemies, and taking steps to move on.
     Today I had a huge breakthrough!
     While tinkering around with dates and moon phases in the World of Elakand calendars and timelines a bunch of plot lines wriggled into place and I was able to outline the last six chapters of my novel (working title: Troubadour's Quest; probably will end up as The Dark Lady's Troubadour).