I used to think I knew a reasonable amount about computers. That I was quite techno savvy, quite capable of running my own little blog and website, quite good at keeping up with social media trends.
I’m not. Last week proved this to me.
You may have noticed that my last post was a reblog from Song of the Sea God that I thought was a useful starter for anyone trying to write a synopsis of their book. I have found writing a synopsis one of the hardest things. As a memoir, there is no preconceived plot: I simply know what happened! Yet distilling that into one side of A4 is nigh-on impossible. Chris Hill’s ‘Ten tips’ was advice I wish I’d heard before I started and so thought I’d share it with you, dear readers.
So far, so good. I clicked the helpful ‘reblog’ button that WordPress provided, and waited. And waited and waited. Lovely little twirling circle thing to watch. Still waiting. Made a cup of tea, came back, sat down, computer still waiting.
Decide it’s not reblogging.
There is a basic rule for most computer problems: switch it off and then back on again. In miniature, I took this to be: close page and reopen the blog. All this happened quite successfully, and second time of asking, the post reblogged in seconds.
Although, when I returned to the tab with this webpage open, I could not see it. I refreshed the page, but nothing. Maybe there’s a time delay, I thought, and so I left it until the evening. Refreshed: nothing. And again the next day.
Really, at this point I’d given up.
It was a couple of days later that I realised that I was refreshing the previous blog post (kicking my book over the line) rather than the entire website. Type in catharinewithenay.com and sure enough, there was the reblog.
So I admit to my stupidity, and recognise I should be taking lessons from my teenage son, and am now going to go and hide my head in a paper bag. Don’t laugh too loudly.