My laptop decided to explode on me. With three days before NaNoWriMo starts, this is unacceptable. I don't know what part of the cosmos I offended to have this happen, but the writer inside me is weeping. Not least because most of my outlines are now sucked into oblivion.

See, I have a backup copy of my computer on an external hard drive. I backed everything up on October 11th, which was approximately ten days before I got my actual idea for this year's novel. I got excited and made some notes on NeoOffice document...because my copy of Microsoft Word disappeared the last time my laptop exploded, about a month ago.

I thank my lucky stars that I've been regularly emailing my old roommate who is now on a mission. I've been sending her essentially my journals for the week, so I've only lost about four days' worth of my journal. Still, any loss is inconvenient.

What really cooks my grits is that my social calendar is so jam-packed as to make any trip home for fatherly computer repairs inconvenient. I can limp by on my external drive well enough; the only thing now is that my laptop makes a funny clicking sound, and none of my files are in the right place...and oh yeah, my novel outline has been eradicated from my computer's recollection. Not to mention my fears about typing anything on my computer ever again.

Back to good old paper and pen I go.