When Technology Turns On You

No image today. I'm not even going to attempt to upload an image. Not today. No way. Let me explain.

You see, I love technology. I don't know what I'd do without my computers, internet, email, printer, fax, telly, and CD player. But when you get used to having it available and working well and then it's gone, it's like Little House on the Prairie time.

Okay. I'm exaggerating. I tend to do that. But let me tell you what my week has been like. I'm working on a new project. A cross between a police procedural, a romantic suspense, and a thriller. Yeah. I'm a square peg in a round hole kind of gal. None of my stories fit neatly in any genre. Anyway, I'm pushing to get to 'The End' by Mother's Day. How cool a gift to me would that be? This past weekend I did the twenty hours straight thing on Saturday and Sunday. In one twenty hour period I wrote 45 pages. So Monday followed and that meant district tennis tournaments for my daughter. Since it's her last year, I feel a certain obligation to attend. Plus, I'm a huge tennis fan--and an even bigger fan of my daughter. But I still needed pages! So, I grabbed my binder, laptop, blanket, and cooler and headed for the tournament. I got one page written and a had a nice pink burn going by the time I left.

Tuesday, I start my writing routine early determined to make up for lost pages. I click on Mozilla Firefox to do some research and wait. And wait. I frown. I pay for really high speed internet and the page is loading like I'm back on dial up. Or slower. I try a couple more pages. Same thing. I try another computer. Still sloth speed. So, I call my computer guy and tell him about the problem. He comes over and we call the Internet Service Provider. I'm listening to elevator music for about ten minutes before we finally get through to a technician. She goes through all the troubleshooting steps with my computer guy. Everything checks out on my end. So, she gives us an incident number and says she'll pass it up to the next level of support. We should have a call back within 8 hours. Well, guess what? This is day three and I still haven't heard boo. Meanwhile, I'm waiting five minutes for a page to load. (This is NOT an exaggeration!) Sometimes the page times out before it even loads.

This is particularly frustrating when you're writing and want to do a quick fact check. I have to jot down everything I need to go back and check. The alternative, however, is to get on the phone and call the ISP technicians again. The last time I did this myself I spent two hours on the phone with the guy. But if I call my computer guy back, it's another service call charge.

What to do? What to do?

So, what would YOU do? Call the techs back? Forge ahead with your story? Pitch a fit? Threaten to sue? Eat more chocolate?

I'm considering grabbing the speaker phone, a hunk of dark chocolate, sitting down in front of my computer and dialing the ISP guys up. I've got a pretty grim murder scene to write. Maybe the tech support call will provide...inspiration.

~Bullet Hole knocking on wood and crossing fingers this post will upload~