Friday Speak Out!: Carole’s Five Tips for Facing Computer Problems

by Carole Mertz

As a writer, you should always remind yourself you’re unique. However, when it comes to learning how to face and fix computer problems, for example, you are not unique. Others have likely faced the same problems and found solutions.

You, the writer, have your own particular set of values, skills, accomplishments, and fears. Here are five tips to help you when facing frustrating challenges. (You may need these, because facing a computer glitch may seem to rob you of your personal values, skills, and sense of accomplishment, while causing your fears to loom large.)

1. When a seemingly insurmountable obstacle stops you short, remind yourself all solutions take time. Approaching the problem in a relaxed state will yield results sooner than from a state of high anxiety.

2. Even the most often published writers face technical difficulties at almost any level of the professional writing process. You are not alone. Tackle what you can, to the best of your ability.

3. If you are unable to solve the problem yourself, reach out for help. Realize if friends or family can’t help, you may have to pay for solutions with hard cash. Try to slow yourself down. Most problems don’t need smack dab immediate solutions.

4. Inability to do something does not indicate failure, it simply indicates inability to do something.

5. When technological problems are overcome, don’t forget to thank those who helped you. If you solved the problem, thank yourself with an ice cream cone or other reward of choice.

One of the best dreams I ever had was one in which, facing an obstacle I couldn’t overcome, I simply went around it. (I try to recall this dream in applicable moments. In certain situations, going around may be the only solution. (Having solved my most recent technological challenge was so rewarding I didn’t even need the ice cream.)

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Carole Mertz began writing 10 years ago and has followed WOW! Women on Writing ever since. She has poems, essays, and reviews in various literary journals including Ascent Aspirations, Conium Review, Dreamers Creative Writing, The Ekphrastic Review, MER, Working Writer, and others. She is book review editor at Dreamers Creative Writing, reads in prose and poetry for Mom Egg Review, and reviews regularly at Eclectica. Carole’s first poetry collection, Toward a Peeping Sunrise, is forthcoming from Prolific Press, 2019.
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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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