Writing By Hand

 I'm not sure if October is giving me tricks or treats when it comes to electronics. Last week, my laptop's sound suddenly stopped working. When I tried troubleshooting the computer, it died. It was nine years old (I got it the week I published Lyon's Legacy), and I'd already replaced the hard drive on it a few years ago, so it wasn't worth trying to repair it. Fortunately, I'd started saving up for a new computer last year and had enough for a mid-range computer (still a step or two up from my old one). I ended up purchasing my new computer from Costco and even got it on sale. Of course, I had to wait a couple of days for shipping, plus a couple of extra days before I received the notice I could pick up my laptop. 

What does a writer do when her main writing tool breaks? I have a netbook as a backup, but it runs on archaic software and is very unresponsive. Even if I wiped its memory and tried to restore it to factory settings, I don't think it would work with Windows 10, and I might not be able to use whatever version of Windows it originally came with. So I went old-school and satisfied my writing urges with pen and paper. Although I have a printout of the first draft of Murder at Magic Lake, I decided I didn't want to revise it manually, especially when I need to add new scenes. I ended up starting a new story in the Season Avatars world, one set after Summon the Seasons.

 Writing by hand is much slower than typing. My cursive is hard to read, and my printing isn't much better. (I'm left-handed, so that's my excuse.) I used a legal pad, and my goal was to write at least one page every night. The words came fairly easy, considering sometimes I struggle to find words when I'm typing. Each hand-written page was about 200-250 words. When I finally received my computer on Saturday and transcribed my story with a few minor edits, it was about 1,100 words. It doesn't seem like much for several day's work, especially when some writers can manage a thousand words an hour, but it's still better than not writing at all. The experience makes me wonder if I would have been a writer if I lived in a time when computer's weren't available. Of course, many other aspects of my life would be different as well.

How do you feel about writing stories by hand? Does it make a difference in your story flow? Do you find handwriting or typing easier physically on your hands? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Storage Locations: Flash Drive vs. Cloud

Normally I like to write or edit on my lunch hour, but I used my time yesterday to write this blog post instead. That's because although I remembered to bring my netbook, I forgot to bring the flash drive where I store current versions of all my important documents. (Don't worry; the flash drive was on my desk when I came home. I had removed it from my laptop but forgotten to stick it in my netbook case.) This happens every so often. Normally I find something else to work on instead; for example, I might draw up a character sketch or plot another story. This time, I wondered if it would make more sense to start keeping my working copies of documents in cloud storage. I would probably use Dropbox, which would work not just with my netbook and laptop but also with my phone. Office 365 also offers cloud storage, and I know other places to get it as well.

The main reason I work from a flash drive instead of cloud storage isn't security or privacy concerns (although those are important), but access concerns. Internet is usually available in most of the places I normally go, but not always. If we're traveling somewhere , I try to squeeze in some writing time while my husband drives. Finding wifi on the highway wouldn't work in that situation. I suppose I could use cloud storage most of the time and upload files to my flash drive right before the trip. Still, sometimes it's easier to have only one spot for your working files. (I do agree that backups should be in multiple locations for safety.)

Where do you keep your current files? For that matter, where do you keep your backups? (Formats can become obsolete very quickly.) Did you remember to back up your files recently? Feel free to discuss in the comments.

Twinned Universes on Sale for $0.99 From 9/10/14--9/17/14

Quick update on the computer situation: the new hard drive arrived last night. I'm still not sure if I'll install it myself or have someone else do it. I may use PCMover to set up the new hard drive.

Nine years ago, Eugene and I got married. Happy Anniversary, sweetie! May all our days together be as sweet as our wedding cake--with far fewer calories, though.

To celebrate, I'm putting Twinned Universes on sale for one week. Normal price is $2.99, but from today through next Wednesday it'll be $0.99 on Amazon. If you haven't grabbed it yet, now's a good time to do so.

Paul Harrison always wanted to play Hamlet, but he never expected he’d live the role first.
In the aftermath of a family tragedy on 21st century Earth, Paul discovers he’s the clone of Sean Lyon, his great-great-grandfather and a famous TwenCen musician. Suspecting his mother’s death was no accident, Paul comes up with a plan to trick the answers out of the great-uncle who had him cloned. But in order to make his plan work, Paul needs help from Sean himself—and Sean’s time is running out in the TwenCen universe next door. Although Paul’s family lives on the spaceship that travels between the universes, he’s never been allowed on TwenCen Earth. Now, with the help of his friends, his disguise-creating holoprojectors, and a quantum quirk, Paul must make his way to Sean while evading other time travelers who fear he’ll change the history of the TwenCen universe. If Paul is to achieve justice, he must not only risk his own life, but the wormhole connecting the universes. “To be or not to be” was a simple question in comparison....

Preparing for Computer Failure

On Saturday, my laptop started giving me messages no one wants to read. It's telling me my hard drive is about to crash.

This may seem like a total disaster about to happen, but I already have some preparations in place. In addition to my laptop, I also have a netbook, so I won't be without a computer. (I bought the netbook earlier this year to make writing on the go even easier.) My most important files (at least, the files I'm currently working on) are on a flash drive so I can use them on either computer. I use Mozy to backup my computers twice a day, so I should be able to recover all my other files. I'm also going to back up my laptop to an external hard drive to see if that will help me with the operating system and e-mail. Another thing I will do is sort through my messages and organize them so I can back them up to Gmail.

When I realized my hard drive is dying, my first instinct was to shop around for a new laptop. After comparing specs and prices, I decided I'd rather just replace the hard drive. I ordered a new one from Amazon and should get it this week. Now I have to decide if I'm going to try to replace the hard drive myself or find someone to do it for me. There are YouTube videos that demonstrate how to replace the laptop, but if I can't find one that matches my computer exactly, it might be safer to find an expert.

As for what to do after I get the new hard drive installed, first I'll have to figure out if I can reinstall my old operating system or if I have to upgrade. I'm not sure if Mozy will allow me to reinstall programs, so that may be another issue. At least this unexpected purge may leave me with fewer programs taking up space on my computer.

Have any of you had to deal with a crashed hard drive? Do you have any other tips for me? Conversely, if you haven't had this issue before, are you backing up your data regularly?

A New Netbook

Since I'm a slow writer with little writing time, I need to make the most of what time I can scrounge from my day. Sometimes I even write in the car while my husband drives, but even with a laptop, this can be cumbersome. I therefore recently decided to invest in a netbook as well. It arrived Monday at work, and since I was home with my son yesterday (who had another snow day due to the cold),I got to set it up, and Alex got to use it to drool over his Amazon wish list. Here are my old laptop and new netbook side by side. The netbook is small enough to fit into my purse and has a touchscreen. The battery life seems longer than the one on my laptop. It's a little tricky using the keyboard, since it's smaller than a normal one. The netbook has Skydrive, but I'm not sure I can get that to work on the laptop. I may have to transfer files between them with Dropbox or a flash drive. Today will be my test run of using it at work on my lunch hour.

Does anyone else have a netbook? If so, how do you like it? Do you have any tips for using it?

Let's Talk Computers

I don’t remember exactly when I purchased my Dell laptop, but it’s about as old as my son. Four may be a golden age for children, but it’s leaden for laptops. My programs were crashing all the time, I was having trouble with the Sleep and Hibernation modes (I’d wind up rebooting anyway), and most ominous of all, the hard drive was too quiet. Figuring a hard drive crash was just waiting to happen, I decided I’d better replace my laptop sooner instead of later. So I did a little research and bought a HP Pavilion from Best Buy. It has at least twice the RAM of my old laptop, over six times the hard drive space, and cost a lot less. If only everything else in life improved in quality and price over time like computers.

I remember the last time I bought a computer, I had to buy a special program to set up the new one. I had to hook up the two computers and let them sync up overnight to transfer my files. This time, the new laptop came with a Windows Easy Transfer program. I was able to transfer the bulk of my files in a couple of hours via my external hard drive. Some things didn’t survive the necessary program conversion/transfer, and I still need to see if I can import my e-mails from the old computer. But for the most part, the transition has been pretty easy.

So, what programs do you consider vital for a writer to have on her computer? I still have to upgrade the trial version of Word, but I do have Calibre, Dropbox, Overdrive, and a trial version of Photoshop Elements. What else do you recommend?