I'm a writing fool, fool.
Computers hate me. I've figured this since I first saw Maximum Overdrive. So on Thursday night, I was making some real headway on this short story I've been revising. I added in an extra scene that I thought was working really well. But it was getting late and I had to be at work at nine the next day, so I figured I'd print up the revisions I'd made and then work on one of the computers there. It's always pretty slow for the first couple hours on Friday, so I figured I'd be golden, although this would be a derivation from my normal work habits of writing every word out in long-hand first.
So the first hour that morning, I'm allowed to work unmolested. But then my boss asks me to help her help some of the ESL kids log on to the computers in the next room (you don't know cute until you've attempted to explain the workings of the Grossmont Community College computer system to a Russian emigr old enough to be your grandmother). When I get back to the computer I'd been working on, I find my nemesis--this fat old fuck fossil of a tutor who is even more useless than I--on the computer next to mine, poking her big nose into my shit, all trying to be slick about it. This story is not only a work in progress (therefore, at this point, for my eyes only), but it's also highly personal, y'know? And it's the last thing I want this broad reading. So then when it does eventually become my turn to tutor somebody, I lock the computer up, so's nobody else can monkey with it.
Now, Amina is swell. She's a Kurdish immigrant and she's taking novel-writing this semester. She's kinda designated me as her go-to guy in all matters fictional, which is not only flattering but a welcome break from the bullshit essays I gotta read eight hours a day. But why she didn't check to see who was on that computer before she pulled the plug, I'll never know. All the revisions I'd made that morning vanished into the Tron world, lost forever. Should I have been using a disk? Yes, absolutely, but I thought the fact that the computer said, "This computer is in use by JAMES CALLAWAY and may only be unlocked by this user" would be enough. And did Chubby McUseless, sitting right there, watching Amina piss my (current) life's work down the drain, did she raise a sausage link to stop her? Well, I think we all know the answer to that one.
Amina was so sorry, on the verge of tears almost, and I assured her it was fine, that it wasn't the end of the world, that I'd be able to remember enough of what I'd written to salvage most of it (all of which was true). Then I smiled and went out for a smoke and grabbed the first person I saw and beat the living shit out of them.
I could go on about the troubles I've had since, but we're all bored with this topic now. Now, like most writers, I'm in this for the craft, but, man, if this shit don't pay off, I'm gonna really have to find a job that lets me vent my violent temper. Y'know, like prizefighter. Or nanny.
Computers hate me. I've figured this since I first saw Maximum Overdrive. So on Thursday night, I was making some real headway on this short story I've been revising. I added in an extra scene that I thought was working really well. But it was getting late and I had to be at work at nine the next day, so I figured I'd print up the revisions I'd made and then work on one of the computers there. It's always pretty slow for the first couple hours on Friday, so I figured I'd be golden, although this would be a derivation from my normal work habits of writing every word out in long-hand first.
So the first hour that morning, I'm allowed to work unmolested. But then my boss asks me to help her help some of the ESL kids log on to the computers in the next room (you don't know cute until you've attempted to explain the workings of the Grossmont Community College computer system to a Russian emigr old enough to be your grandmother). When I get back to the computer I'd been working on, I find my nemesis--this fat old fuck fossil of a tutor who is even more useless than I--on the computer next to mine, poking her big nose into my shit, all trying to be slick about it. This story is not only a work in progress (therefore, at this point, for my eyes only), but it's also highly personal, y'know? And it's the last thing I want this broad reading. So then when it does eventually become my turn to tutor somebody, I lock the computer up, so's nobody else can monkey with it.
Now, Amina is swell. She's a Kurdish immigrant and she's taking novel-writing this semester. She's kinda designated me as her go-to guy in all matters fictional, which is not only flattering but a welcome break from the bullshit essays I gotta read eight hours a day. But why she didn't check to see who was on that computer before she pulled the plug, I'll never know. All the revisions I'd made that morning vanished into the Tron world, lost forever. Should I have been using a disk? Yes, absolutely, but I thought the fact that the computer said, "This computer is in use by JAMES CALLAWAY and may only be unlocked by this user" would be enough. And did Chubby McUseless, sitting right there, watching Amina piss my (current) life's work down the drain, did she raise a sausage link to stop her? Well, I think we all know the answer to that one.
Amina was so sorry, on the verge of tears almost, and I assured her it was fine, that it wasn't the end of the world, that I'd be able to remember enough of what I'd written to salvage most of it (all of which was true). Then I smiled and went out for a smoke and grabbed the first person I saw and beat the living shit out of them.
I could go on about the troubles I've had since, but we're all bored with this topic now. Now, like most writers, I'm in this for the craft, but, man, if this shit don't pay off, I'm gonna really have to find a job that lets me vent my violent temper. Y'know, like prizefighter. Or nanny.