Technology

I write on a laptop that I bought 7 years ago for 99 bucks. I don't let it go online. It's a little walled garden away from the internets. The other day, it stopped being able to talk to my main computer, so I let it and it's programs update. I was worried that the update might bork the harddrive, because updates borking harddrives is what killed my last two main computers. The update went fine.

However, now it powers on slowly, the writing program takes forever to load, it responds slowly to everything and also it did a restart of it's own accord and lost some of my work. It's become an absolute pain to use and now I feel dumb for not finding a work around for the file passing. I could possibly restore it to factory settings, but all the files has associated with the updated programs and ... it would be a very lengthy mess even if the restore worked. I've never had a restore actually work as a fix.

I don't want to replace the system, but I may have just been an idiot and just gave the system obsolescence. I am going to poke at it for a bit, but I am not as tech savvy as I was. Maybe I should re-work how I even do my writing process. I want to be writing not sitting here complaining dealing with this.

What is your writing set up?

My last post was about how my writing laptop, with it's cool stickers, might be dead. I got that machine partially because small keyboards wreck my wrists. I cannot write in a phone. I sometimes do drafts or notes in paper compositions books. I tried Scrivener when I was doing photography articles for that now-defunct photography magazine, it kept crashing on me. Apparently, it's way better on Mac?

I am trying to think if somehow I could/should rework how I work. I'd like to at least try a writing program, it feels like most productive writers I know use them. I could get Scrivener for my iPad but the keyboard for them as way too small. I could try it again on my current laptop. Or, IDK, do something totally different?

I want to think about options before I spend too much time and possibly money trying to revive my writing machine.