Computers, Printers, and Phones (Oh, My!)

 

Computers, Printers, and Phones (Oh, My!) by Debra H. Goldstein

Today’s blog was written at the last minute. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to write it earlier. I had the best of intentions, but I ran into a combination of technological and human snafus.

 

When we moved, I didn’t hook up my standalone computer. Although the screen is a nice size, both to fit on my desk and to see, the tower is massive. For now, that computer, which is ten years old, is sitting in the corner of my office until I decide what to do with it. Not a problem, I was going to write this blog two weeks ago on my seven-year-old laptop.

 

The laptop has slowed from when I bought it, but it has been getting the job done. At least it did until two weeks ago when I thought about writing this blog. Suddenly, it began having problems being turned on. Either the connection button didn’t connect or there would be a moment of blackness before the words appeared. When it took me fifteen minutes to toggle it on before a Zoom PR call, I realized it was time to replace it.

 

I’m a writer, so it had to have memory, writing capacity, and a comfortable keyboard for typing purposes. I don’t do much in the way of gaming, graphics, or fancy stuff, so it didn’t need every bell and whistle. I’m not going to take you through my search process or how I decided it had to be curbside or mailed to me. Suffice to say, I ordered a new laptop, used not having it as an excuse for not starting to write this blog, received the computer, but failed to open the box – which was also an excuse for not writing. I finally broke down only to discover after six hours that what should have been a simple set-up wasn’t.

 

Next up was a conversation with a service rep after many minutes of being on hold. But, as you can see, we got everything resolved. It was a simple matter of having signed in with the wrong email. Six wasted hours on top of two wasted weeks.

 

My writing of late has been like the timing of this blog. Rushed or non-existent. For the past month, I’ve been doing PR for Three Treats Too Many, the third in the Sarah Blair series. The heaviest push has been during the past two weeks. Most of the time, the event was only an hour or two, with maybe another hour to prepare. But afterwards, when the adrenaline eased off, I was wiped out. My focus was gone. Things that should take ten minutes took hours because I missed something simple, like using the wrong email account for the 365 Office log-in.

 

In retrospect, I realize that for each of my books, I’ve had trouble balancing writing and PR. What about you? Does doing one or the other zap your energy or creativity? Do you look for an excuse to avoid one?  If so, I have a printer that is on its last leg, too.