Revisions

How do you manage your revisions? You know, like you write a chapter then realize it pretty much stinks so you edit, tweak, or completely rewrite the thing.

For me, it depends. It depends on if it's just tweaks. If it is then I'll make the changes and save it as the same file.

If I am doing some cutting (like big chunks/paragraphs) then I have a separate file for my WIP cuts. That gives me a nice file to go grab stuff that I may have written but ended up not using for one reason or another.

If it's a complete re-write I generally save an old version of the manuscript and then use the new version from that point forward so I can refer to the old in case I wanted something. Plus it gives me a copy of my work at least to a certain point in time so if other backup methods fail I will at least have something.

So why am I mentioning this topic? To re-inforce the fact that you should never delete or throw away anything you write. You never know when it could be of use. How would I know this?

Besides listening to many other writers, I have just learned this lesson the hard way. I wrote a chapter then decided I hated it so I pretty much rewrote the entire chapter. But do you think I can find it so I can borrow pieces of it for a chapter that I am now working on?. . .NO.

And now here I am, having to re-create some of the work I had previously done. Learn from my mistakes.

Hackers and Your Writing

The idea for this blog came from Charlotte Phillips blog http://charsbookreviews.blogspot.com/

Charlotte recently had an experience with a virus attack. About two weeks ago I went through the same thing.

Luckily, I have everything backed up, but that day+ wasted was pure torture. It got so bad that at one point I couldn't see anything on my screen. I actually contemplated throwing my trusty laptop away and getting a new one. HORROR! - love the little thing. When the red fuzz of anger cleared from my brain, I took a deep breath, and went to task. I defragged, did a chkdsk, and was finally able to see my screen. Then I was able to run an antivirus software...actually several. After all that (hours and hours) I was finally able to use my computer again.

What is with these people? Do they think it's fun and games to destroy people's work?

How do you prevent these things from happening? Do you constantly run an antivirus application? It slows your other applications down (painfully so at times) and that's only part of the issue. Don't forget about spyware. So now you have to run a spyware killer application too? Oh, and if you run on a wireless network...that's another can of worms. You have to make certain it's secure so no one else can use it or get on and see what you're doing. BEEN THERE!

Does anyone have some great suggestions on how to prevent these things from happening? Any great articles or tools to recommend?

For all you writers out there...if we can't beat the hackers and prevent their damage...we can make sure our writing gets saved. I recommend the Microsoft Home Server. It's a small, headless machine that you hook up to your network, then all your computers can use the Home Server to get backed up on a regular basis.