Well, it did hold up its end of the bargain...

A joyous New Year to one & all, mine's...hit a bit of a rough patch. Last night, my battered, but beloved laptop went off to that good death. I make a glorified allowance, so a new system is sometime off for me yet, but thankfully, I can get online from work (much like now) so I won't dissappear entirely.

The computer's been threatening to kick off for quite a while now; it's nearly 5 years old, it's hand-me-down & it's been moved around (and on rarer occasions, dropped) too much. It'd been getting noticeably during NaNo, so the computer & I made a deal - if it really must die, I needed it to wait till I a) finished my novel & b) got an external HD so I didn't lose EVERYTHING(again!). Well, I finished my novel, at least the first draft I was shooting for anyway & for Christmas, I was pleasantly surprised to get an external hard drive. So, while only getting on a couple times a week is a bit of a drag, I had time to save everything & it held up it's end of things, so I'm not too upset.

This is going to make writing interesting. I haven't written, as in pen & paper, anything longer than a grocery list in AGES, I always type. But, I don't want to wait to write exclusively on the computer, ass I've found, it's hard to get/keep momentum going if you wait days between sessions. I hope I can get the same kind of flow writing on paper as I do when I type.

In other news, I've been doing a lot of reading recently. Just a couple days before Christmas, I bought a copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I'd been meaning to read something of his for a while, but when I was buying comics (actual, single issue comics, not the compilations I get now cuz it's just easier, lol) there was only one or two places in town that sold them, it was a very limited collection & did not include Sandman, but that's where I knew the name from. He did one of the Pep Talks for NaNo last year & I really liked it, so I've started reading his blog & I think I can fairly well say....I *heart* Neil. If you haven't read him, you really should, he's awesome, clever & engaging & funny. Look him up on neilgaiman.com or wikipedia or imdb.com If you haven't read him, there's a good chance you've still seen his work, several of his pieces have been made into movies & he's written screenplays for other things as well. Anyway, I read American Gods, then a couple days after Christmas, went back out & got Neverwhere & Good Omens(with Terry Pratchett) & I've already read all three of them, lol. Now I'm onto a borrowed book which, just coincidentally (I'd gotten it loaded to me sometime in Nov & had half forgot about it) is by Terry Pratchett called Johnny Maxwell Trilogy. One good thing about faulty tech, I suppose....it gives you a lotta time to read.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. I'll be back around as opportunity permits, so likely about 1-2 times a week. Enjoy your new year & go read a good book....or write one!