Thursday thoughts
Sometime in late 2013, I can vaguely remember the feelings of slight panic when my Dell laptop (approx. six years old) was slowing down dramatically. At that point in time, I had been seriously writing for more than 2 years, after ending my career as a primary teacher. From early 2011 through to the end of 2012, I was able to write new work almost continuously since I was only grandchild minding two days a week. That meant there was a lot I could lose if my laptop crashed. There were the original manuscripts with all edits; lots of graphics to go with said novels; gazillions of promotional material since at that time I was published by The Wild Rose Press (New York State) and by Crooked Cat Books in Edinburgh; and there were reams of research. I was terrified I'd lose my data even though my Dell had undergone all sorts of defragging (?) clean-ups and such like. In May 2014 I got a new laptop.
Now in mid 2019, my current HP laptop is five years old and my external hard drive which stores an amazing amount of stuff is of a similar age. I have a feeling I need to do lots of nurturing and more than a small amount of computer housekeeping very soon.
Some people are naturally techie but my knowledge of computers is extremely patchy. For a couple of decades, I depended on my computer consultant husband to do quick fixes for every problem. He's still on tap for help but sadly what I do now (as a self-published author) is rarely what he has knowledge of.
It's taken me the best part of a year to sort out some issues with using the programme Calibre to convert my word manuscripts to other versions like EPUB and MOBI and get near-perfect readable copies. It has only come to my attention two days ago that the huge issues I've had over converting my Word 2003 manuscripts with Calibre would have been easily solved by my saving the documents not as a Word .doc but as a Word 2007 .docx . So now I know! I live and learn something every day.
This has been a huge revelation since I've had to depend on my extremely friendly and generous Ocelot colleague authors helping me with conversions, taking time out of their own very busy days!
So... my next work (as well as new writing) will be to make a slightly changed version of my final manuscript for The Taexali Game, saved as a Word 2007 .docx . I've only about 5 current copies left to sell at my local book fairs and will need to order new copies soon. The Createspace version made in 2016 has been 'transferred' to Amazon KDP but a new version is needed since I was less knowledgeable at formatting when I made that very first foray into self-publishing. there is a distinct lack of front matter!
To date, I've kept The Taexali Game as a separate publication under my own publishing name of Annaril because it was intended for a wider reading audience of perhaps 10 years old through adult. What I've found is that adults are enjoying more than teens so maybe the new version needs a different target market?
Today is also the penultimate day of school here in Aberdeenshire so for the next six weeks I'm likely to be out and about with my grandchildren.
Writing beckons...
....and news tomorrow of a great feature for Agricola of Agricola's Bane!
Slainthe!
You have done extraordinarily well keeping laptops going that long. Mine typically were 2-3 years before they slowed to a crawl and I sold them & bought new. That said, we moved to MacBooks 5 years ago and have never looked back. Mine is still going strong other than my eating up the memory (I run a lot of programs at once). I'll double the memory on the next one.
ReplyDeleteComing from a technical background, I make sure everything is backed up multiple times. And it's all automatic or it would never get done. I use TimeMachine and a portable hard drive (Apple's backup solution) for my onsite backup. I also keep all my important files (personal & writing related) in Dropbox which means I have a local copy and a copy in the cloud (great for access from another computer). I also have Carbonite running which keeps a full backup up-to-date in the cloud (as long as I have internet). Paranoid? Maybe...but I'd rather be protected.
Wow! You are definitely well backed up, Donna- computer wise! I've recently also been saving on memory sticks but nothing as complex as you do. I can do basics but not much beyond my 'needs'.
ReplyDeleteThat's why automatic is best for me...otherwise, it would get done sporadically. I've lost data and had to recreate - not fun!
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