On Writing and Storytelling: Back at the Desk, One Restart Later

Friday, April 17, 2026, Orlando, Florida

Hi, everyone.

I’m writing today’s update from my new Lenovo IdeaCentre, which arrived yesterday morning right on schedule. With help from my landlady, Nina, I had it unboxed and set up in no time. Like my previous two Lenovo desktops, it’s an all‑in‑one machine — no tower, no cable jungle, just a power cord and a wireless mouse‑and‑keyboard combo. Simple, clean, and familiar.

Setup went smoothly for the most part, though the wireless keyboard gave me a brief heart‑stopping interlude. For two hours it refused to connect, even after I swapped batteries and moved the USB receiver from port to port. Eventually, a few restarts did the trick, and everything has behaved perfectly since. Technology loves drama, I suppose.

By yesterday afternoon, I had restored most of my old Windows environment. Office 365, Kindle Create, the Kindle reader, Amazon Music, Steam — all safely in the cloud and ready to go. Chrome and Edge brought over their settings without complaint, so the transition has been far less disruptive than I feared.

There are a few casualties, though. This machine doesn’t have a CD or DVD drive, which means my older writing programs — WriteItNow 5, Write Way, Dramatica 5.0 — are effectively stranded unless I buy downloadable versions. That’s not in the budget right now; the new PC, sales tax, and the protection plan already pushed me past $800. So for the foreseeable future, Word, Google Docs, and Kindle Create will be my creative toolkit.

And yes, because my Kindle Create files for Reunion: A Story, Reunion: Coda, and Comings and Goings – The Art of Being Seen were lost with the old machine, I’ll need to rebuild those projects from scratch. The manuscripts themselves are safe, so it’s not rewriting… just re‑formatting. A lot of re‑formatting. I’m not thrilled about it, but I’ll get it done. The Garratyverse deserves to be whole.

The upside is that I’m back at my desk — a real desk, not a temporary laptop setup — and the work can move forward again. That alone feels like a small victory.

If you’d like to spend some time in Jim Garraty’s world while I rebuild the production files, you can explore the existing stories on Amazon and Audible at your own pace. No pressure — just an open door if you’re curious about where the journey began.