A tale of two computers

Since my netbook's hard drive quit a couple weeks ago, I've been using my old Averatec more.  It's my backup computer, so I used it while the Asus was getting the hard drive replaced, but I also used it for several days after I got the Asus back.  It was having quite a few problems when I retired it ages ago, but part of that was that Outlook was freezing -- and since I haven't been using Outlook on it (just webmail), I haven't had any problems.

I'm remembering the things I liked so much about this computer, such as the nicer screen (larger, better pixel density, and just in general nicer to look at), and I've been thinking about reinstalling the operating system so that I can start using it more again.  I went ahead and ordered a new battery, too, which came yesterday (the old battery wouldn't hold a charge at all).  The new battery is telling me that I'll have close to 5 hours of battery power with it fully charged up, which is far more than the netbook -- another point in its favor.  The biggest disadvantage right now is the smaller hard drive (though I have a USB hard drive to put pictures on, so it really doesn't matter) and the fact that it runs a little hotter than the Asus -- not a good thing in summer, but since I'm not really at home anymore during the hottest part of the day, that's probably not a problem.

I have been so busy this week that I haven't had much of a chance to do anything with the computers.  Both have been sitting on the coffee table in the living room, the last place I was working on them (partly because there isn't room on my desk for both until I clean it).  Today I'm working on getting the most recent copies of all files onto each of the computers.  I also need to finish reinstalling some of my software onto the netbook -- I haven't yet done that since getting it back -- and I want to test the Averatec's battery to see how much time I really get out of it.  Once I've done that, I'll reinstall the operating system.

In order to solve the problem of which computer to use, I intend to clean my desk and keep both of them there, with one out of the way at all times so that I can work on the other, but easily change them out if I want to.  And then we will just see which one I end up liking best over the long run!

How do you revise?

With the June session of Camp NaNoWriMo under way, I've been working on revising last year's novel.  I decided that in June, my goal will be to go through the entire manuscript and mark up the changes I want to make.  Then in July, I will make the changes.  I'll also be working on some remaining research during both months, though I think that might fall more into July's to-do list.

Revising a novel is infinitely different than revising an article or a blog post.  For the shorter things, I tend to revise a bit as I go, and then give it one last read-through on the computer when I'm done.  With the novel, though, I'm starting out by doing it the way Stephen King suggests in On Writing -- reading through the manuscript, marking changes, and then making the changes once I'm done.  The only difference is that since I want to be able to work on it on the go, I am marking up the manuscript in a PDF reader on my Nook.  It's much easier than hauling around a 300-page manuscript!

I'm not sure yet how much I like the method, though, and I am still in the process of figuring out what works best for me.  Therefore I am interested in hearing from other writers: How do you go about doing revisions on a longer piece, such as a novel?

Two computers and a lesson in backing up

I had a good scare the other day: I went to turn on my netbook, which had shut down the previous night with no apparent problems, and it wouldn't boot up.

At all.

I barely restrained myself from having a complete and total meltdown: I hadn't backed up in months.  I was halfway through a big magazine article, and had some novel notes and research I didn't want to lose, plus (eek) all of our tax files for our 2011 returns.  (I do have hard copies of those, since I believe in redundancy on important things, but still!)  Then there were the months' worth of work emails, the spreadsheets with all my work income and expenses, tons of photos...

In retrospect, it's amazing I didn't lose my sanity once the full gravity of the situation hit me.

Of course, as these things tend to work, it was an evening, so I had to worry all night long about whether I'd be able to recover all my data.  The next day, we took the netbook to a repair place in town, and they took a look.

The verdict: hard drive failure.

That was what worried me the most, but it turned out they were able to recover all my data.  They even cut me a deal because I brought my own external hard drive to recover it to.  Turns out it was cheaper to install a new hard drive than to buy a new netbook (especially since I'd have to pay even more to upgrade all my software, as I still run Office 2000).  They even offered to let me buy a hard drive at Microcenter and install that one, since theirs were more expensive.  Not a bad deal at all.

So I went home and resurrected my old Averatec laptop in the meantime.  Long-time readers of my blog will remember how much I loved that thing.  It's the same size as the netbook, the same weight, but it has a full-size screen (1280 x 768 instead of the 1024 x 600 of the Asus Eee) and a CD/DVD drive.  It was starting to freeze and crash all the time, though, which was why I got the Asus three years ago.

It got me started thinking, though -- why not do the same thing with the Averatec, replace the hard drive and start using it again?  Even better, why not look into replacing the hard drive with a solid state drive and upgrading the memory?

So during one of my trips to the repair shop, I asked them about it.  They tested the Averatec's hard drive, and amazingly enough, it was fine -- so the issue is with the operating system, not the hardware.  If I can find the CDs that came with it, I can install a fresh copy of Windows, buy a new battery (this one is toast), and start using it again.

Two computers... Whatever will I do with myself?

Although this incident had a happy ending, it did remind me of how important it is to always back up.  From now on, I think I'll hang my flash drive from the bulletin board above my desk as a reminder to back up every day after I'm finished working!

A week off means a week to write!

This week is my calm before the storm.  I'm actually working almost double the hours at my nanny job over the summer, so I will have less time to maintain my writing than in previous months (not that I've done such a good job of it then, either).  But I'm hoping that I'll manage, since I'm planning on doing Camp NaNoWriMo in August (I'm only loosely participating in June, as I'm using the next two months to finish some research and a first round of revisions on last year's novel before I start the second book).

But this week the family I nanny for is out of town, so I (blessedly) have the week off before the summer schedule starts.  I'm planning on doing more of both writing and riding, although Michael took the week off too, which will cut into my plans somewhat -- we have lots of stuff planned that we want to do this week, too.

In other news, my broken finger is healing well enough, although I still can't use it to type -- it's good for a few keystrokes before it starts feeling a little sensitive, so I've stuck with my nine-fingered approach, even though the doc said a couple of weeks ago that I could start typing on it in a week or two.  I don't think it'll be much longer, but I just don't feel quite ready for it yet; and in any case, I've gotten quite fast at typing without it -- almost as fast as I was with it before the accident.

My plans for this week are to finish an article that got delayed after my accident, do a little blogging and blog upkeep, and start working a little more on my novel research and revisions again.  With any luck, I'll be able to accomplish most of that without getting distracted!

Nine-fingered typing

Do you ever have those idiot moments that you would give anything to take back?  I had one last night.  I had my finger in the wrong place as I was setting my horse's hoof down, and before I had an opportunity to move it, he put his weight down.  OWWWWW.

You can read more about how it happened on my horse blog.  For the purposes of this blog, though, fast forward to this morning, when I started learning how to type with only 9 fingers.  It turns out the most common finger used in typing is your left-hand middle finger... the one I hurt, obviously.  (Not that I'm complaining -- I'm actually quite glad it was not my right hand, since I am right handed.)

Trying to blog on Percocet is also very interesting, by the way.  I wrote that post on my horse blog while feeling the lovely effects of that drug, and am doing so again now.

Of course, I have a due date looming, so my editor will have to be informed.  I wanted to wait, though, until I had an idea of how well I'd be able to type.  The verdict: I should be able to, just rather more slowly than usual.

I took today off from the nanny job, though I am going to try to go back to work tomorrow.  Next week, I have some plans for my blogs.  I've started slowly switching my blogs over to the new Blogger template designer, and I'm thinking of totally redoing this blog, as well.  I had planned to redo my website to expand on the services and portfolio sections a little, but since I've backed off that a little in order to focus on fiction a little more, that doesn't make sense anymore.  I think therefore that a new website might better reflect my new focuses in my freelancing.

I do plan on taking advantage of having a little extra time to work on my blogs, but I also want to make sure that I don't make any important decisions under the influence of Percocet, so I will probably wait until I'm not so dependent on it to make any major decisions!

Frame of mind

I've been terribly busy lately.  It seems that my mornings -- the time I've set aside for writing and blogging -- are never really mine anymore.  This year so far has been the year of pet expenses, as it has been one animal illness or injury after another since Christmas, but that also means lots of pet-related demands on my time: vet appointments, physical therapy, and time-consuming home care.  And what mornings aren't eaten up by our pets' needs, are quickly taken up by something else -- even if that something else is nothing more than a much-needed mental break, such as a nap or a morning at the barn.


In the last week or two, I've been able to reclaim a few mornings here and there -- anything beyond the last couple of weeks is, unfortunately, a big blur.  But on those mornings I've had to myself, I've come to appreciate something that I never even realized I had when I had it: frame of mind, or should I say, peace of mind.  I've learned that it takes a certain frame of mind to sit down at the computer and work, to feel able to write.  I had that frame of mind when I worked from home full-time, even if sometimes I wasn't very productive.  I even still had that frame of mind when my mornings were actually mine, after I started the afternoon nanny job.

But the last couple of months, when most mornings are spent busy with I don't even know what anymore, I have been able to just sit down and work, even on the mornings when I am home.  I'm so accustomed to running, running, running, all the time, that I can't sit down in front of the computer and make my mind focus on a blog post or an article or whatever I need to write.  Sometimes when I try I end up falling asleep.  Other times I get this feeling in my head like fingernails on a chalkboard, or like gears grinding -- like I'm trying to make myself do something that is, for the moment at least, physically impossible.  And even when I feel like I might, possibly, be able to pull it off, our dog Grace (the one with hip dysplasia, who has gotten increasingly more neurotic over the last year and, especially, the last few months) paces the house relentlessly, until I ready to boil over with irritation and frustration.

This morning hasn't been a good morning, so this blog post is probably coming across a little more colorfully illustrated than it would on a calmer day -- but really, how many of those do I have anymore?  In any case, this should give you a good idea of why it has been so long since I've blogged regularly.

There have been good things too, though, things I hope to blog about in the coming weeks.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that all the pets will stay healthy for a while once this most recent infection has cleared up, and perhaps I will be able to take back my mornings -- or at least most of them!

Reclaiming my blogs

It's been a long time since I've blogged regularly.  Even a couple of my other blogs that were more regularly updated than this one have suffered.  One reason is that for the last few months, I've been writing a considerable number of blog posts for a client — mostly book-themed blogs, but a few others as well, and that has cut into my time and desire to work on my own blogs (especially once you figure in my part-time nanny job, which monopolizes my afternoons).

The client recently cut back on assignments, however, and while I am a bit disappointed about the lost income, on the whole I think this will be a good thing — even as ignored as they've been, the ad revenue from my blogs has picked up a bit recently, and I think with a little more nurturing it might really take off.  And, truthfully, which is more satisfying — getting paid for blog posts for someone else's websites, or seeing my own blogs turn a profit?

Anyway, the end result is that I should have some more time in the future to update my blogs regularly again, which I am really looking forward to!