Yin and Yang

There's definitely a balance in the Universe. Today, on the same day that the external hard drive containing all the Metallic Dreams data (as well as hundreds of Gigabytes of music, movies and TV shows) decided to die, my book received another touching five-star review on amazon. I'm choosing to focus on the review, as it's always life-affirming to hear that a story has resonated with a reader. In fact, that's the whole point of storytelling. It's not about authors' egos or publishing houses' profit margins; it's about stirring up emotions in readers and making them feel.

As far as the hard drive goes, I've learned an expensive lesson: if data's important don't pick an external hard drive based on its storage capacity or price; choose a drop-tested model that's shockproof, waterproof, fireproof and bulletproof, as it will keep those priceless zeros and ones safe. With any luck, a data-recovery specialist will be able to retrieve everything from my old drive and transfer it onto a new, more resilient one. For a few hundred quid, of course. Long ago I figured out that when it comes to toilet paper, washing-up liquid and coffee, you get what you pay for. I can now add external hard drives to that list.

And what holy missile of wrath destroyed the drive? A plate. Not a large or particularly heavy plate. Just a regular plate which slid off the bed and fell one foot onto the hard drive's 'sturdy plastic casing'.

Right now I'm off to have a mozzarella and pesto pizza along with a huge mug of filter coffee...just to tip the balance a little further towards good.