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By Leslie, August 25, 2010 8:20 am

No, seriously, do you have one?

I had an out of body moment this morning. I lost the latest version of my manuscript. Sync services ate it.

I use a system for writing that involves two computers, SugarSync, and Scrivener among other programs. Now, I adore Scrivener. It allows me to manage my complex manuscript like the project it is. A Scrivener project is built around a package of individual text files indexed by the Scrivener application and presented in the UI as an integrated whole. There is a variety of metadata around each file that includes attributes like last changed, scene, status, or anything else you could possible imagine or create. It also allows you to take snapshots (i.e. versions) of any part of the project and save them so you can roll back if you decide that the outrageously brilliant plot twist involving slugs and penguins was just a wee bit too far out.

It also means that there are about a bazillion tiny files inside a Scrivener package. Not a big problem, unless you are syncing the files individually. Ahem.

Syncing between computers is hard. I’m certain of this because I’ve used a broad assortment of sync services over many years with little to no success. Man, it must be a freaking hard problem. But in the past couple of years, sites like SugarSync, Apple’s .Me, and DropBox all seem to have it working pretty well. Until it doesn’t, of course. And let me say here that I use all three services for different things.

That’s what happened to me today. I lost my latest version of my manuscript A Fault in Time in a sync collision that corrupted the Scrivener package. This is the manuscript that finaled in the contest, the one that an agent has requested. I said I had an out of body moment, because that’s what it was. An out of body moment.

I looked stupidly at the terrifying error message that told me my file was horribly corrupted.

I said, “*&%#”.

I launched Time Machine, restored the file, and kept working.

Total elapsed time lost….about 20 seconds. (Ignoring the time to blog about it.)

Total data lost….nothing.

What’s your backup strategy? Have you tested it lately?

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By Leslie, August 22, 2010 6:19 pm

A few weeks ago I entered A Fault in Time into a contest at SavvyAuthors.com. I was hoping to get some feedback. To be honest, I was feeling a little wobbly about my baby. Gulp.

For new readers, A Fault in Time is the work in progress that was started in a LibertyHall MidSommerMadness camp last summer, achieved first drafty status in 2009 NaNoWriMo, and has been my baby and albatross through FIVE..(5) full, bottom to top revisions.  You cannot say that I am shy about taking a weedwhacker to my words. (hehe alliteration..I am feeling spunky).

So two weeks ago, much to my astonishment, I was told by Liz over at SavvyAuthors that my baby had made it to the final round. Whhhuuuuuttt? No shit?  And there was a lot more cussing and some hyperventilation.

The judges’ comments were useful, wonderful, and insightful and I felt truly happy! They liked it! They saw where it could be better! YAY!

So today, you could have nearly dumped me over with a fracking feather….A Fault in Time (OK, the name, she sucks.) won in her division. *&())()*(*(*@#$^  Lordy Lucy– and the agent who read it wants to see more? For real? Now I’m extremely grateful to this amazing person for wanting to look a my manuscript, and if this is as far as it goes, I will still be happy. Because I know that I have a shot. I really effing do.

Who knew?  Evidently my most amazing husband who just smiled and said, “Of course.”

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By Leslie, August 2, 2010 7:38 am

His examples range from curators at the Getty museum who when faced with an expertly executed fake statue failed initially to see it as a fake, to overwrought doctors trying to decide the fate of possible cardiac patients in a inner city hospital in Chicago. He walks us through the dilemma faced by police officers with milliseconds to decide if the dark object in a young man’s hand is a gun or a wallet.

It’s interesting stuff. And the parallels to the current crisis in the publishing industry were obvious.  According to Gladwell’s experts, the key factor between making the correct split second decision, the right blink, is the amount of good, no excellent, prior information and research you have internalized or a willingness to follow a set of triage instructions and not waver in the face of conflicting information. The cardiac physicians who used the apparently simple triage rules, ignoring the rest of the symptoms, had patients with better results. The art experts with years of experience trusted their first glances of the statue and identified the fake, but only because they backed it with deep knowledge.

Gladwell found when inexperienced people trusted their initial judgments, or blinks, preconceived results based on bias ruled. Decisions often went awry.

The publishing industry is in crisis and not just from the threat of ebook readers. Personal computers, the internet and easy access to just about anyone makes it seem like anyone can write and publish a book. Just do google search! Slush readers who twenty years ago would get a handful of manuscripts  a week to slog through for an editor or agent are receiving, in some cases, hundreds each day. Agent backlogs are months long.

How are these querys and first pages getting read? I bet they’re getting blinked. And in most cases the slush readers are likely experts and know what they are looking for. But some are getting blinked in an unknowable, inexpert way, as well. That’s just human nature and the internet firehose.

Since I am getting ready to query my first novel, this means that anything I can do to elevate myself above the slush pile is crtitical. You can work to gain access through contests and, pitch sessions at sites like SavvyAuthors or other writing sites. Producing squeaky clean pages and a tight query seems like a good starting point. Making sure my unique voice shines in my first pages, and the rest of my novel is one of my priorities, and improving my basic grammar and self-editing skills. I figure in a Blink world it’s all about not squandering any opportunity that drifts my way.

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By Leslie, July 24, 2010 4:57 am

An iPad is an odd beast. It’s like a toothbrush.

My husband and I both have iPads. He visited our oldest son a few weeks ago. Old Son does not have an iPad but is a technodweeb and lusts after all things shiny. I asked how he liked the husband’s iPad and there was a long hesitation in the chat window.

Mom: did u play w/ iPad?

.

.

OS:  no. iPad too personal. u know?

HUH? I had never thought of the iPad as more personal than any of the other devices he wrenched out of my hands to fondle nearly as soon as I unboxed them. Then I thought about it, inspected my iPad, and he’s kind of right.  But that goes along with my growing realization that the iPad is not bastardized/turbocharged webpad or a replacement for the MacBook Air. It’s a whole different class of device.

I use it to do some of the things I used to do on my phone like quickly look up contacts and news, and some of the things I used to cart my MacBook Air around the house for like control the sprinklers and the Apple TVs and look up arcane bits of info in IMDB. It stays by my bed so I can check my mail in the morning and it goes in my purse now, not my MacBook Air. And lets not forget all the recipes that I now have at the swipe of a greasy finger.  Oh…and the books!! But even then, I will choose to read on my light weight Kindle before dragging out the iPad.

The theme here is easy  and personalized data access from multiple sources delivered in a single device. That is true power.

If I’m going to do serious writing, the Air comes along. I’ve got a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad, but that’s silly, my Air is my writing device of choice anyway.

So, do I need the iPad? No, I guess not, but try to pry it out of my fingers now….  iPad….Personal Access Device

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By Leslie, June 22, 2010 7:25 am

I just paid my yearly tithe to Audible.com.  Yes, I admit it, I am an audiobook junkie.  I do housework, exercise, walk the dog and do the dishes all to the strains of my favorite audiobooks. My family are all Pandora and Shazaam junkies. My iPods don’t have any music on them, pure audiobooks.

So as I’ve been editing A Fault in Time, The Box, my short stories and the Weekly SavvyAuthors.Com Newsletter, I began to think.  My best line edits come when the computers read my words back to me. I follow along on my iPad or hardcopy and make notes. I can’t skip or read what I mean to write but actually didn’t. But this ties me to the computer. It’s summer! I want to be digging in the dirt!  What if I could convert my entire mss to an AAC file, an audiobook file?

Well I can, and it’s changed my life. At least my editing life.

What I wanted was a tool that would let me create an AAC file, import that into iTunes and play on my iPod so I can immerse myself in my own writing in my favorite way. And most importantly the way that will not let me skip words or read what I intended to write rather than what I actually wrote. I can check for pacing, redundancy and crappy sentence structure. Those pre-fab voices are also real sticklers when it comes to grammar. lol. The voices are flat and pretty montone so it’s really all about your words. Do they work do they flow?

There are a number of applications that will speak words back to you. I’m on  a Mac, so Mac OS also does this.

GhostReader by ConvenienceWare is my choice, and at $39.95 for a full license is a pretty nice tool. They also have a 15 day trial that works in a nifty way: 15 days that you actually use the application not 15 days from installation!

On the iPad or iPod SpeakIt is an amazing little tool.  I can import an entire manuscript and choose a reasonable voice and let ‘er rip.  But I cannot create a file of more than 1000 words.  8(

Well, I’m off to edit…while I pull weeds. Ta!