If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what are 10,000 words worth? That is what a local aspiring author is trying to answer.

Alana Connolly's Toshiba laptop was recently stolen from her car in a Henrietta parking lot, but it is not the actual computer she wants back. Cars are broken into and things are stolen everyday, only this thief stole so much more than a simple computer.

Words are valuable to Connolly.

"That laptop was just a big piece of all of my growth as an author," she said.

Connolly and her co-author Alanna Smith have spent the past six years writing, re-writing, pitching, and writing some more: trying to break into the world of young adult sci-fi.

"We think it's really really close," said Smith. "It's just a matter of finding the right person at the right time, or you know kinda gotta find someone in the right mood."

"It's a lot like dating," added Connolly.

The stolen laptop contained 12 full books, manuscripts, and countless rough drafts.

"For an author trying to be published, that is like stealing an author's paintbrush and all of their paintings," said Connolly.

The kind of intellectual property you can't put a price on. Connolly has lived on her own since she was 17, struggling to make her way without any family. Writing is her way out.

"It's not that they too something from me, it's that they took ideas from me," said Connolly. "They took a universe from me, they took away dreams that I spent years to build, it's ideas that I will never get back and words that I can't just rewrite again."

Connolly's stolen Toshiba is just about worthless. It's got a crack in the corner, burn marks on the bottom, and holds about two minutes of battery life.

"Whoever stole it can't even use it because they didn't steal the power cord with it," said Smith. "So they basically probably opened it and it shut off and that was that."

The thief also swiped Connolly's iPod Touch. She doesn't care about that. It's the millions of words and six years' worth of ideas, thoughts, and feelings that she will never be able to fully replace. It's why she is making a plea.

"I don't have a reward to offer them and I don't have any sort of bribe," said Connolly. "I hope out of the goodness of their heart they could hear the story of someone else who's struggling just like them, and I just want to have those pieces of my life back."

If you have any information or have the laptop itself, Connolly hopes you will do the right thing. She has filed a report with the Monroe County Sheriff's Department, but at this point she doesn't care about any kind of charges. She said drop if off with the sheriff's department and say you found it: she just wants the material back.

Connolly didn't have a flash drive, but parts of the novels and some of the drafts were e-mailed back and forth between her and Smith. So it's not all gone, just most of it. In the future she said she will invest in some sort of backup drive.