Waterlogged Electronics and What Turns Out to Be Important

So as you all know, I recently destroyed both my cell phone and my ultrabook in water-related disasters.  First of all, I utterly despise the phone.  The instant it rings, I automatically turn into a grumpy Nobek, snarling at this hated disruptor of my life.  I attribute this deep-seated antagonistic attitude to having Asperger's.  One of my many aspie quirks is an intense dislike of being interrupted.  And since I'm in the middle of doing something at all times, the phone ringing ALWAYS interrupts me.

So I honestly did not miss my cell phone and was a little chagrined when hubby got me a new one.  It is a necessary evil, especially since I need it on hand in case my autistic son's school has to reach me quickly (which happens about twice a month -- the kid gets into everything and it's usually the school nurse on the line).  Doesn't mean I like it though.
The computer though -- ouch.  Especially since I got it so recently.  I hate wasting money even more than my phone ringing.  That was an expensive dunk it took.  Even now, I could kick my own ass for being such a klutz. 
In all honesty, the computer had several glitches that drove me a little nuts.  My advice to you all is to avoid Acer products -- this is the second glitchy computer I've had from that brand.  I am not going to buy them again.  Anyway, cantankerous or not, it was a brand new computer and I had several little items on the hard drive that I hadn't backed up.  Not the books -- good heavens, no.  I back up my books and WIPs in several different places after each and every change.  If I lost any of that work, I'd swan dive off a tall building somewhere.  But I did lose some stuff I would have rather kept.  I still might get it back; my trusted tech gal is trying to salvage the hard drive.  I can't depend on that though, and I have cried over the loss of work and money. 
So I was stuck for a few days on the oldest Toshiba laptop in existence.  Talk about a dinosaur.  And it hates the Internet.  It took patience, a collection of curse words, and pixie dust to make it connect to the web at all.  Then to keep it up for more than two minutes?  Yeah, right.  So I had to limit my forays into the world wide web.  No blogging.  Next to no Facebook.  Checking email once a day.  All the Tosh could reliably handle was Microsoft Word and me upping my word count on various projects.
The first day of this five-day enforced exile was a little shaky, I admit.  I wondered what I was missing.  What everyone else was doing.  Who had sent me a message.  How my book sales were going with me not there to check them twice a day.  I wondered if anyone missed my blog. 
But it wasn't too bad, to be honest.  I concentrated on my writing.  By Day Two, my life was humming along quite smoothly (when the phone didn't ring).  Though I didn't have those pieces that had been taking up a large portion of my day, I had what really mattered.  I had the books I was working on.  I had lusty aliens, horny women, and situations sexual and dangerous.  I had a serial killer to catch, Tragooms to kill, and men to seduce.
I'm glad to be back among you again in this 'net world we live in these days.  I can get back to promoting and marketing, which for me equals grocery money.  But I had gotten to the point recently where I worried how much of my writing I was doing for the cash.  I don't have another job.  This is how I make my living.  And I had begun to wonder how much of it I still did for the simple love of creating. 
It turns out allof my writing is done out of love.  Separated from the business end of producing books for a little while, I found supreme delight in writing just because I was writing.  Because I love my characters.  Because I love the worlds I construct.  Writing really does make me happy.  Deliriously happy.
Money is good.  The occasional glowing review is good.  Hearing from the readers how much they enjoy my work is GREAT.  But in the end, I'm writing what I love and love what I'm writing.  I know now for a fact if no one ever bought another copy of my books, I'd still be doing it.
RIP, you poor drowned Acer ultrabook.  And thanks for the sacrifice to let me know I'm still in this for all the right reasons.  Plus, I got a really awesome Samsung with no weird glitches now. 
And Tracy wrote happily ever after.