Back Up Your Book!
Let this be a lesson to you kiddies: Always back up your work!
That's right. You guessed it. The motherboard in my five year old Mac decided to hang its boots up and call it a day. I've killed it during that time, putting it through Adobe Photoshop rendering to uploading videos for Suvudu. It put its time in, of that I have no doubt.
When it died, it took most of my files with it.
Good news: I got to buy a shiny new 24' monitor G5 Mac with all the bells and whistles it could possibly come with.
Bad news: I lost some files.
For the last four days I've been trying to save those files, mostly to no avail. Sad huh? But thankfully I back up my book files a couple of times a week. I could have conceivably lost an entire year's worth of writing. But Terry, a long time ago when I began this dream, gave me a few pieces of advice and one of them was to back up, back up, back up!
You see, Terry has lost chapters, plural. Several times. He almost lost a book once but it was retrieved by the Apple people. He learned his lesson after those first few escapes, and he backs up incessantly. And prints off a hardcopy of what he's written that day. Smart man. So smart that I've tried to adopt that thinking. Although I don't print a hardcopy I do back up in four different spots. That way, if something goes wonky, I won't lose what I am working on and, therefore, have to destroy all physical matter and dark matter I see around me.
I'm finally back on track though, after NY Comic Con, three signings and the time it takes to ship those books out, and now this computer fiasco. I've almost uploaded onto my new computer all the programs I need to function. So now maybe I can finish the book!
And I am close. I'm almost finished with Chapter 31. The battle is on. It rages. Bran is doing what he can but it won't be enough. Even he knows it won't be enough. And when the chapter ends, the reader will be wondering about the fate of the Tuatha de Dannan.
Then comes a Richard chapter. And let me tell you, that Richard chapter is going to be hellfire-ishly awesome to write!
At that point, Richard's arc will be complete. And I'll have two out of three POV character arcs wrapped up.
Weird, huh?
Then a chapter, maybe two chapters, and The Dark Thorn will be finished, editing aside of course.
And just in time too, because The Long Winter is literally screaming at me to be outlined. Every day I get a great scene pop into my head or a character idea that works. It's really coming together in my head and once I get The Dark Thorn out and to New York for judgment I will start on outlining The Long Winter. It is best to be prepared if lightning strikes, right?
Saw Dan Simmons this week. Was fun. Taped his event and that will be up on Suvudu.com in a few days. Tomorrow author Ken Scholes, whose debut book Lamentation is getting great reviews, will be coming over to my place to sign several dozen books. Should be fun.
But for now, back to writing!
And that's where you should be too!
That's right. You guessed it. The motherboard in my five year old Mac decided to hang its boots up and call it a day. I've killed it during that time, putting it through Adobe Photoshop rendering to uploading videos for Suvudu. It put its time in, of that I have no doubt.
When it died, it took most of my files with it.
Good news: I got to buy a shiny new 24' monitor G5 Mac with all the bells and whistles it could possibly come with.
Bad news: I lost some files.
For the last four days I've been trying to save those files, mostly to no avail. Sad huh? But thankfully I back up my book files a couple of times a week. I could have conceivably lost an entire year's worth of writing. But Terry, a long time ago when I began this dream, gave me a few pieces of advice and one of them was to back up, back up, back up!
You see, Terry has lost chapters, plural. Several times. He almost lost a book once but it was retrieved by the Apple people. He learned his lesson after those first few escapes, and he backs up incessantly. And prints off a hardcopy of what he's written that day. Smart man. So smart that I've tried to adopt that thinking. Although I don't print a hardcopy I do back up in four different spots. That way, if something goes wonky, I won't lose what I am working on and, therefore, have to destroy all physical matter and dark matter I see around me.
I'm finally back on track though, after NY Comic Con, three signings and the time it takes to ship those books out, and now this computer fiasco. I've almost uploaded onto my new computer all the programs I need to function. So now maybe I can finish the book!
And I am close. I'm almost finished with Chapter 31. The battle is on. It rages. Bran is doing what he can but it won't be enough. Even he knows it won't be enough. And when the chapter ends, the reader will be wondering about the fate of the Tuatha de Dannan.
Then comes a Richard chapter. And let me tell you, that Richard chapter is going to be hellfire-ishly awesome to write!
At that point, Richard's arc will be complete. And I'll have two out of three POV character arcs wrapped up.
Weird, huh?
Then a chapter, maybe two chapters, and The Dark Thorn will be finished, editing aside of course.
And just in time too, because The Long Winter is literally screaming at me to be outlined. Every day I get a great scene pop into my head or a character idea that works. It's really coming together in my head and once I get The Dark Thorn out and to New York for judgment I will start on outlining The Long Winter. It is best to be prepared if lightning strikes, right?
Saw Dan Simmons this week. Was fun. Taped his event and that will be up on Suvudu.com in a few days. Tomorrow author Ken Scholes, whose debut book Lamentation is getting great reviews, will be coming over to my place to sign several dozen books. Should be fun.
But for now, back to writing!
And that's where you should be too!
Labels: The Dark Thorn, The Long Winter
posted by Shawn C. Speakman | 3:33 PM
8 Comments:
Backing up is the smartest thing a writer can do. Glad to know you saved most of it from the metaphorical fire!
Ahh, the Tuatha De Dannan... there's a group I've grown familiar with in the last 18 months! I'm eager to see how our two interpretations of the fey folk differ!
~Aidan
A Dribble of Ink
I learned to back up my work years ago, mainly because my father told me back it up; and then my theatre professors when it came to scriptwriting. Of course, I have 3 different copies of my manuscript stuffed into a dresser door. And a babies file for things I refuse to completely delete.
So now before I log off for the night, one copy to the hard drive one to my memory stick and a print copy in case I lose both.
I'm sorry your mother board exploded. I'm glad you were able to salvage your work, especially
your YouTube work and book.
I finally bent to the pressure of outlining and found a wonderful way to record it so it survives in case all the world's computer crashes. But I spilled soda on my original outlines :(
So hopefully you'll be done soon.
Carry on the good work Shawn.
Francine
Aidan: My Tuatha aren't alien enough, I think. I mean, the creatures are all represented and they fit in the book fine but the characters who actually speak are too human I think, different dialects aside. So when I go back in to edit I am going to shake it up a bit. They are too much like Elves and I don't have Elves in my book. The Elves are... elsewhere.
beansidhe: I like that you print it off. I should do that. Terry is a wise guy. Aidan, do you print off your chapters when you are done with them? Or do you just back them up electronically?
I am interested in the Tuatha De Danann too and wonder what becomes of the children of Danu. Should be some fun final chapters too write.
Will Richard be in Winter Scion or will the next book be more about Bran?
Just curious. Wanted Lamentations the other day, but am going to have to wait on it.
Have fun writing!
:)
beansidhe: Richard will make a brief appearance in The Long Winter. That book is more about Bran and Sal Vincenzio, the Knight of Chicago on the banks of Lake Michigan.
You will meet Sal briefly in The Dark Thorn.
Shawn,
I tried to stay away from the Elvis depiction of the Tuatha De Dannan. Some of them certainly share similarities with elves, but my version of the Fey race is a varied hodgepodge. It's been a lot of fun to write. I have a feeling we've taken [i]very[/i] different angles with the Tuatha and their world.
As for backing up, I used to print out a hard copy of everything, but recently I've just been making digital copies of it all. One tip I have is to just zip everything up and keep a copy on one of the servers used for your web site. That way it's entirely removed from your computer and retrievable from anywhere. Just make sure to hide it well!
~Aidan
Mightier than the Sword
I tried to sign up at Suvudu.com and your sign up thing would not accept my URL. Try it - it works www.ecatworlds.com. So what is the problem as your thing sees it??
gmead@uci.net
So to try and contact you this way but it appears to be the only option that I could find (:
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