Hacked!

Oh, my dear friends, how nice it is to be sitting down at this old Toshiba, what with its alternating sticking letters and space bar and a mouse that sometimes gets a mind of its own, and type. My poor little baby as it is–it is also a crusty old curmudgeon at times–got hacked into on Friday, so I spent Friday before and after work on the phone with technicians, then the same much of the day Saturday before work and then even a little after work, and then again today, much of the day before work.

What is more, they’re telling me I can expect to spend about five hours a day for each of the next five to seven days to get everything cleaned up and new antivirus measures in place. The whole deal has been and will ultimately be a good story–it has a lot to do with faith–and I may even tell some of it on here when it’s all said and done. I probably won’t, however, as the whole process is so redundant and mind-numbing that I probably wouldn’t have any idea how to treat it or even remember it.

All that matters now that I have it to use, and enough of the new security measures are in place to allow me to do so with a small amount of confidence. It’s also important that my word files are intact. Most of it is saved in the cloud through our Mac, but the things that haven’t been backed up are the last three or so weeks of writing, which includes editions of the novel from that time. Those changes have been saved but not to the cloud, as this sweet old young girl Toshiba isn’t synched to the cloud.

I had my phone to do some blog work, but those multiple hour-plus calls with the techs don’t allow much writing time. Still, I got a little done, and there’s a piece about a “real housewife” forthcoming, which I think will be followed by a piece on the Seattle music scene that started with Mother Love Bone and Nirvana.

That’s all well and good, but the work that really requires my time right now is the editing of the novel. I had gotten through the first 100 pages of the third draft Thursday–the manuscript currently stands at 242 pages–and I had promised it to Chuck by the end of next week (which is now this week.)

So, it wasn’t a great time to get locked out of it. Still, I’ll make the weekend deadline.

And what a sweet feeling that will be, as I believe the story will be set pretty solidly at that point. Unless the ending is going to change that is, but I’m not even going to consider if that will happen, or what change I may make–I had four or five possible endings in mind–until three or four people have read it and had the opportunity to weigh in.

Alas, on it goes, and I hope I’m not beating a dead horse when I say once more how very inspiring it is for you to meet me here and see what I have to say. I hope it blesses you, and I hope you like something a little bit more when you leave than you did when you came. You are in my prayers, and I hope that we are in yours, if you pray. And if you don’t pray, say a little one for us anyway.

Be well. Until soon…

OMGoodness!! I am crapping you negative (Name the movie) when I tell you that just now, at 2:10 am on Monday, I got a test from a tech. I responded to it, and he called me. Told ya, this is pretty much non-stop stuff. Hasta…