Death of a Computer

This week I've been having computer issues. On top of that, our internet was down for two days.

While I'd love to say that being disconnected from the internet lent an epiphany of how reliant upon my computer I am, I can't. It sucked.
There are so many times I found myself wanting to look up a question that popped into my head, "How would one banish a demon and close a portal?" or needing to help my daughter with her 5th grade math homework, "How DO you write a variable expression where 48 is decreased by W?" (Really? WTH?), or even just feeling the need to check the weather forecast. And I couldn't do any of that.
Which gave me the screaming mee-mees.

I'll admit it, I'm reliant upon my computer for information. It's like my own little library. Not that I don't use the library, because I do. But the computer gives me instant info with the tap of the keys.

During this information blackout, my laptop decided to act up as well. I can suffer through being disconnected from our home internet service, because I DO have my teeny-tiny little phone and it's miniscule keypad if I really feel the need to surf. But my computer dying on me? No.

So, the first draft of the novel I'm working on now and all my random writing from the past six months--were sitting on my desktop, waiting patiently to be transferred to a memory stick. And and there they sat, with me unable to retrieve them.
I swear all my nefarious, supernatural creatures just suck the life out of my computers because I've gone through three of them in the past few years.
After having a full-blown tantrum (why do kiddos always catch you swearing at inanimate objects?) I calmly informed my husband that I was going to expire and jump off a cliff, not necessarily in that order.
My husband is my hero. He was able to perform surgery on my computer and retrieve everything I had been working on.
He's just clever like that.

This week, I'm left without a laptop and relegated to a desk top computer. I'm not complaining however, because I have my writing.
My supernatural creatures have some explaining to do.

Computer Savvy or How to Teach Yourself Computer Programming in 3-Easy-Steps

Some of you may know that I’ve recently signed a contract with Musa Publishing for my new novel, Between.  I’m very excited by this and spent the first day bouncing off the walls and blurting to complete strangers My Exciting News. I probably clear a path walking into the local grocery store now...but that could be my imagination.

After the initial excitement wore off, well, a little of it, I realized that my true work had just begun.  The writing?  It was work, but fun work and something I considered reasonably effortless.  The social networking and promoting?  Not so much.

So, I’ve spent the last week trying to upgrade all of my author sites; my website, my blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc., and have come to the conclusion that I will never be a computer programmer.  Ever.

It should’ve been simple.  All I needed to do was to add some social buttons sending readers here and there so they could be “in the know” as to when Between was being released.  Everything would be connected into one big, easy-peasy, social stream.

Or so I thought.

Social buttons.  Twitter, Blogger, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, there are hundreds of them.  Facebook has a button which sends the reader to a person’s page wherein the reader can “Like” or “Friend” that person with the ease of one click.  I figured I'd start there. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. Not a problem.
For some reason, however, this simple task took me a total of 2 days to complete.  Apparently, computer programming is not my calling. 

I logically began my search on the internet for instructions on how to add a Facebook button to my website.  A website, I might add, that I suffered over years ago and haven’t touched since for fear it may just blow up in my face. 

My search led me to a plethora of helpful websites of which I chose one by eHow. The instructions read something like this; “Go to the website of Facebook, type in social plugin” (which I did immediately, so now I was on Facebook’s “How To” page). “There are two Like button implementations, blah, blah and blabbity-blah.”  Oh. Okay.  Well, I hadn’t a clue what “blah” or “blabbity-blah” meant but I was sure if I looked them up, all would be revealed. 

And off I went to do that very thing.

I found another website which thankfully, was only too happy to define “blah” and “blabbity-blah” for me.  It read something like this; “Blah.  Parses and renders the gabbidy-gook and can be used to send the blah to the hurpity-derp.”  Oh.  Of course. Why did I not think of that?  My attention at that point was starting to wander but after a quick swig of coffee, I was back on track.  I was absolutely sure that if I looked up the meaning of "hurpity-derp," I would understand what "gabbidy-gook" means.  It was that simple. 

And off I went to look for that.

Success!  I happened to find a webpage that told me exactly what “hurpidy-derp” means.  It was a mark up language for building a Facebook application.  Okay, that made sense.  Uh-huh. Except now I couldn't remember what I was looking for.  Oh yes, a Facebook button.  Maybe I needed to start over again.

I closed all my tabs with a furious click and typed;  “How to add a Facebook button to your blog." Maybe “blog” instead of “website” would bring up different hits and something would make sense.  I found the headline, “Adding Facebook “Like” Buttons to Your Site is Damn Easy” and since I was on-board with that sentiment, I clicked on it. With a sigh of relief, I read; “For the implementations of blah, blah and blabbity-blah and when one needs to use gabbidy-gook for the hurpidy-derp, one simply mumbo-jumbos the purple dinosaurs so they don’t fly at midnight.”  I was nodding and, wait, what? 

At that point, and in a fit of frustration, I closed my computer and gave up. 

I don’t need a Facebook button right now anyways.  Maybe Twitter will be easier. 

(I wish to update that I have managed to add said buttons to this blog and similes of into my website.  I will not give up and continue to persevere. If any reader wishes to help me in this task, please send me instructions excluding all mentions of mumbo-jumbos and keep your purple dinosaurs to yourself)