A couple of days ago, I noticed my MacBook Pro was acting a little… strange.
While formatting Tiny Epics Vol. 1 (which you can now get here), I noticed the fan whirred more than it used to, and my lap would burn as if a cave troll had rubbed it with a calloused fingertip.
Needless to say, I was concerned.
I didn’t know whether my computer was getting over-excited as I neared the publication of Tiny Epics (tech has feelings, too), but fast-forward a day and things only got worse.
Applications crashed, the mouse didn’t move as nimbly as it once did, and my battery plunged to 64% in less than 25 minutes after a full charge, despite only having Google Chrome open and a rather serious-looking portrait of me sitting atop the Iron Throne.
So, I did what anyone else would do in my situation…
I fired up ChatGPT and spent the next several hours performing technical wizardry that I would NOT have had the manhood to do without assistance.
Turns out, Google Drive was the culprit.
It had created something of a “zombie loop,” as ChatGPT inferred, which, in our speak, means it was constantly backing up my files and thus cooking my CPU.
(A warning to all you Mac users who use Drive out there.)
After a few back and forths, the problem was resolved and all was well…
Until I went to open Scrivener (my default tool for all things writing) to write today’s email, only to find…
MY ENTIRE EMAIL FILE HAD VANISHED.
This file contained everything. I’m talking:
+ 600+ emails…
+ 200,000+ words written…
+ Dozens of rough drafts…
+ And hundreds of email ideas…
ALL GONE. 😭
When I say I scoured every digital nook and cranny for it, I did.
This is yet another painful lesson that all it takes is for one technical hiccup to cost you precious files. It’s imperative to have a backup for your backup these days as we’re becoming increasingly reliant on cloud technology to do it for us — ideally in the form of a physical hard drive (remember those things?).
But here’s the kicker:
Losing files isn’t something exclusive to computer users.
It can happen to anyone on any device at any time.
Sometimes it’s a technical glitch; other times it’s a mishap on our part, but there are also those times when others do it to us.
Surf online and you’ll find no shortage of horror stories about book retailers removing books (that have been paid for, btw) from customers’ libraries at any given moment.
It could be licensing issues, an author deciding to unpublish, etc.
And many times, these widespread removals come without warning.
It’s a dirty little secret Big Book (yes, Big Pharma has an equally devious cousin) has long kept under their silk robes, which is finally getting exposed.
I believe here in Europe, the powers that be are drawing up policies that will force retailers like Amazon to replace “Buy” on their buttons for e-books with something akin to “Borrow” or “Rent” to highlight the trickery they’ve long been profiting from:
We were never buying ebooks; we were merely licensing the right to read them.
I don’t praise the EU for much, but this?
This sort of transparency has been long overdue. 👏
It’s also one of the reasons I push my Storehouse so much.
Unlike Big Book, when you buy an e-book through me — it’s yours to keep forever (unless you initiate a return, of course. In which case, I will personally banish you from the Legion and place a fat bounty on your Kindle… just kidding… sort of).
Maybe I’m old school, but if you buy something, then that item becomes your property — digital or not.
If you like the sound of owning what you buy (ridiculous, isn’t it?), and you also happen to like fantasy, sci-fi, or a splash of horror BUT haven’t got the time right now to commit to reading my short novels…
Then you might just like my latest book, Tiny Epics Vol. 1.
It’s a collection of 141 micro-stories I’ve written over the years.
You can read more about it here:
https://djjwatsonstore.com/products/Tiny-Epics-Vol-1
DJJW