Backing up

I know how could I possible get a new computer, and after so long of not being on the Internet, not update my blog a hundred times by now. Well, I’ve been getting all my software back on to my computer. And thanks to Sharon’s husband, I’ve been backing up, and putting back onto my computer, most of my work that was on my flash drive! Woohoo!

This week is going to be crazy hectic. I’ll be at the hospital for about 14 hours on Thursday. It’s a lot of waiting so hopefully I’ll have time to get a lot of work done. I think Going It Alone is at the point where I can print it out and read through it. I usually save that for about the third or fourth time I’ve been through something since the first few times of reading it I make about a hundred changes.
I thought about taking my laptop but I’m not sure there will be a place to plug it in and I’ll have way too much stuff to lug around.
If I get sick of writing, maybe I’ll finally break into the Tolkien books I’ve been meaning to get to.

And as I mentioned before most of work came off the flash drive but not all. That includes a few pieces of what I had started of Human Decency. Plus, since I’ve taken such a long break from it I think it might be a good idea to just start over and what better time than for NaNoWriMo. So that’s the plan.

Catching up and slacking off

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I'm still trying to catch up with everything. Also I'm procrastinating as usual.

One of the things I was wasting time on was checking my sitemeter. I really didn't get a chance to check it while I was computerless. I didn't want to waste my precious few minutes on the library computer by wandering aimless through visits.
Apparently, putting the Family Guy-Stewie to Bryan "How's that novel comin'?" quotes on my blog has gotten me a lot of visitors. All the other sites I've been to have the clip from the show rather than typing out the whole quote. So they end up at my site when they type in random lines from the quote since the video clips are usually just labeled "How's that novel comin'?"

The other cool thing on my site meter was "Scrubs the musical, 'Am I going to be okay?' Rent"
I was excited to find that I was not the only person who thought that one or more of the songs on the Scrubs musical episode sounded similar to RENT songs.

Guess where I'm writing from?

If you said my desk at home you would be so correct! That's right I got a new computer. Well not new, new but that's not important. I'm so very excited yet I keep thinking I'm going to be driving to work tomorrow, the car door will fly open and the computer will fly under the wheel of a Hummer (they're quite popular where I work).

Now I just have to work on getting back my lost work but right now I need to just be happy. And I have nothing else to say since I spent all my new computer time catching up. I'll write a much better post soon. And by that I mean longer, not more entertaining

Err: My brain has not been formatted

When my computer had a horrible virus I made sure to back everything up. Then the computer died but that’s okay I had everything backed up. Then another computer died but that’s okay because I still had everything backed up.
I had put everything on my flash drive. Well, when you don’t have a computer your flash drive becomes the only thing with your work on it and it would seem reasonable that you should back everything up somewhere else, right? Too bad this occurred to me after I went to open the files on my flash drive only to have it say “this disk has not been formatted” and a ‘properties’ check showed there is, indeed, nothing on it.
How did it happen? The last time I plugged it in at the library I made sure the red light was off before removing it but I hadn’t ended up using it so whether or not it had been erased then, I don’t know.

I know that some of my stuff is saved in e-mails, most of it, at least the finished stuff, has been printed out or was hand-written originally, but the sad truth is that some of it is lost forever.

Once again, just like not having a computer has given me more time to write and less time to waste on the Internet, I think good can come of this. Maybe the stuff that was lost wasn’t all that good. I still have the ideas in my head or maybe even written down in some giant stack of notes. Sometimes you have to start from scratch in order to let go of the bad stuff that you felt loyal to.

For instance, most of what I had written for Human Decency is gone. I still have notes and character outlines but the actual first pages are gone. Maybe it's not all bad. I could now start over on Human Decency for NaNoWriMo. I had taken so much time away from it anyway, maybe starting over is best.

And right now I’m reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. It’s a memoir book and she writes about how her family would never stay in one place very long. Her mother was an artist and a writer. Whenever they would leave somewhere they would only take what they could fit in their car and a lot of times her mother would leave behind almost all of her work. I keep thinking about that whenever I get upset about my disk that has gone blank.

That time of year is drawing near

I can't believe that I just got an e-mail about NaNoWriMo starting soon? And the NaNoWriMo group on live journal is already filling up with posts. Is it that time of year already?

I’m not sure if I’ll do it again this year. I have yet to complete it. Last year I did worse than the year before. There’s a lot going on right now. I’m still trying to edit last year's book and work on Human Decency. Not to mention all the short stories, comic scripts, submissions and other stuff I try to squeeze in. I just don’t think it would be wise. Yet, I love the spirit and idea of NaNoWriMo. It calls to me. I know I could just participate in one of the spin-offs that happen a different time of year but it’s not the same.
One thing I do plan to do this year, providing I have a computer by then, is National Blog Posting Month. Even if I don’t have a computer I’ll give it a try with the library but I’ll probably fail.
I liked NaBloPoMo. Not just because it brought a ton of people to my blog but it really motivated me to post on my blog, which I know I don’t do nearly enough. Well, I feel like I post when there’s a need, which should be enough. Yet, I feel like I came up with some good stuff last time, especially when I received some great suggestions.

I guess I’ll have to wait and see my situation come November. If I’m miraculously done with a ton of my current work than maybe I’ll give NaNoWriMo another shot.
Either way I’ll give NaBloPoMo another try. If I don’t have the ability to post everyday, maybe I can do two posts every other day. I know it’s cheating but the whole point is to motivate people to write.

Currently reading: Batgirl:Volume One