Posts

Back Up There, Buddy: How Not to Lose Your Work

/in , /by

Ralston, Maye

Maye Ralston has published creative nonfiction, journalism, essays, and poems in newspapers and in corporate and commercial magazines since 1985. Her commercial writing practice was balanced between journalism and corporate writing and included writing content for, deploying, and consulting about social and emerging media, websites, ezines, and blogs. She currently writes opinion editorials and short essays for The Sage News Network, blogs at mayeralston.net, and is writing a novel. 

If you connect with me on Facebook, or if you read my last “Shorties” post (at mayeralston.net), you followed my recent drama over “losing” my novel. Basically, I spent hours in revisions, stupidly didn’t back up my work, then synced my novel with another app to make it accessible on all of my devices and easy to make changes on onedevice and have it show up on the other.

Of course I lost everything.

Fortunately I write in Scrivener so I got it back. You can read all about it here.

Being a bit of a techie person, I know it’s important to back up my work against the probability of hardware and software failures. And yet … So I’m going to quickly go over a few back-up options and provide links to a few back-up services for your convenience. (Just in case there’s anyone out there doing what I did.)

A couple of hardware options: 

1. An external hard drive–PROS: handy home office use and provides a second place to store your work; CONS: inconvenient to carry around if you travel with your laptop much and vulnerable to damage and hardware failures.

2. A CD or Flash Drive–PROS: smaller to carry around than an external hard drive, no user name and password is necessary; CONS: vulnerable to damage, vulnerable to loss (especially Flash Drives), and CD’s are inconvenient if you use a laptop with no internal Read/Write CD drive.

Online (Cloud) server storage options (basically you are borrowing or renting space on a computer somewhere in the ethernet):

1. (All brands) PROS: No internal Read/Write CD drive is necessary, you can backup from anywhere, no shlepping additional gear, your data is accessible on all your devices, and you aren’t going to accidentally drop it or leave it on the bus; CONS: you might forget your user name and/or password, you are limited to a minimal amount of storage in the “free” versions, to get more storage you have to pay a small fee (worth it in my opinion), it’s possible their server could have problems (generally they backup data to prevent loss).

My choice is…

…online server storage. Here are a few: Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Drive, Evernote, iCloud (for Macs and Apple Devices only), Dropbox (my favorite). Here’s a link to the top ten online fee-based backup options. You will note Dropbox is listed in the fee-based options. This is because you have to pay a fee to get more than 2G of storage with Dropbox.

 I put a link to Dropbox on my Facebook Timeline and on my Twitter stream. If you join the free Dropbox using one of those links you will get an additional 500 MB of space free. (And so will I.) Here are my Facebook and Twitter address links.

For smartphones, iPads, and Android tablet devices: SkyDrive (OneDrive), Evernote, Google Drive, and Dropbox have apps.

How to use:

Sign up for a service (make sure you are using the personal, as opposed to business version, if you want to use it for free or for a smaller fee), follow the directions to download the service link to your computer (if necessary for use), and begin using. You can google “how to use (insert service name)” for specific directions and additional helpful information. Here is the google search I did for Dropbox.

Special Note: Don’t forget to label each version of your work separately to avoid over-writing previous versions with your latest one. I use “FILENAME-VER #.”

Here is another online backup service that was suggested to me recently. It’s called BackBlaze and costs $5.00 per month for unlimited data backups. It backs up your entire computer.  I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t recommend it, but it might be worth considering if you have a lot of data to back up regularly.

What’s your preferred method of backing up your work?

Please share in the comments section if you have other suggestions or information that might help everyone, or if you have anything to add to this discussion. Also, I’m curious to know how many of you have lost something important because you forgot to back it up. (Come on now, don’t be shy…)

IF YOU ENJOYED READING THIS YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:

Getting Lost With Scrivener
Tools for Writers: The Benefits of Writing With Scrivener
An eSolution for Character Creation: Character Writer
My Pick for Screenwriting Software: Celtx
Where to Timeline and Storyboard: eSolutions
eSolutions for Social Media Addictions
For a Better Quality Break Time: Creativity Enhancing Goodies

Connect with Maye at: @MayeRalston, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, About.Me, and via her website.

 

Becoming a Conscious Reader

/in , /by

Writers don’t simply read for pleasure. We read to become better writers. This is what committee member Cathy Shouse reminds us below.

Cathy Shouse is a journalist who has published hundreds of stories in newspapers and magazines. She is the author of Images of America: Fairmount, and prior to joining the planning committee where she is director of special events, she was named a MWW Fellow in Fiction for her romantic mystery novel. Connect with Cathy on Facebook or on Twitter @cathyshouse on Twitter.

For more on her reading obsession go here.

In looking to manage my money better and improve my health, some experts say that it starts with getting off of autopilot with what you spend and your fitness choices.Cathy

With that in mind, I’ve recently realized the advantages to writers of becoming a conscious reader. The idea came when I taught a college class called Advanced Feature and Magazine Writing. A book called Pulitzer Prize Feature Stories: America’s Best Writing 1979-2003 was suggested as an assigned text to use for the class.

Now, I was no slouch when it came to reading, or so I thought. I had regularly sought out stories in magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. I would click on the entertainment sections of The New York Times, and read Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, before his untimely death. For a while, I subscribed to Forbes and read business writing. Having learned that sports writing is considered some of the best in publishing, I read my share of features in Sports Illustrated and even Golf Digest.

But the Pulitzer Prize feature stories I read to prepare for class were beyond exceptional. The vocabulary was rich. The topics were riveting. The writing style was far superior to anything I had read in years — possibly decades — maybe ever. Plus, I was immediately able to incorporate some of these techniques into my own writing. It was as though my writing world had opened up. I looked at every story assignment differently, aiming for more depth. My students began to do the same, as if our collective bar on writing had been immediately raised, with no lecture or Power Point images required.

About the same time, I decided to read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, a book recommendation that came from an accomplished writer friend. Again, everything from the vocabulary to the theme to the characters was on a higher level from what I had been reading. My mind began to play with concepts that I would have discarded as too complex or not possible for my own fiction writing, before I read that book.

This was somewhat an epiphany. Since becoming a writer, I was told to read — which really meant to continue to read — in my case. And read I have. I simply wish I had been more mindful and had followed a well-thought-out supplemental list of books to broaden my reading experience. In fact, many successful authors have a standard list of writing craft books that they recommend to beginning writers. I’m wondering if it would be good to have specific novels that every writer should read, or at the least, a book list of the exceptional books in one’s chosen genre.

Like the Pulitzer Prize feature articles, these novels would have stood the test of time. I realize the books from the list might not even sell well if introduced today. But books from the list would make one’s own writing better just for having read them.

One of my goals for 2014 is to read some extraordinary books, ones that greatly expand a writer’s mind to explore new avenues and discover mental places unknown. To that end, I plan to read more professional reviews, which can be hard to come by these days. I’ll also look for recommended lists and pay better attention when writers mention books that are special to them.

So, let’s start right here.

What would you include on a list of must-read books for every writer?

What books have made you a better writer?

Overlooking the obvious

/in , , /by

Kelly O’Dell Stanley is a long-time MWW conference attendee and one of our newest committee members.  She is full of doubt and full of faith, trying to make sense of it all through words. A graphic designer and writer, she’s always frazzled, always reading, always watching, always waiting to see what she can discover of her mighty God in this magnificent, busy, confusing, contradictory, glorious, upside down world. And she’s trying to learn patience as she waits for her first book, The Art of Praying Upside Down to be released by Tyndale Momentum in 2015. Today Kelly shares with us where her book came from.  

Kelly blogs at prayingupsidedown.com. You can follow Kelly on Facebook, Twitter (@kellyostanley), LinkedIn, and  Goodreads.

Stanley_Kelly photoMy high school years were geared towards being an architect. It made sense. My dad was a professional watercolorist, and I knew I didn’t have his kind of talent, so I didn’t want to be an artist. I was good at math, good at school in general, and I wanted something challenging. Architecture seemed to be a good fit. I was sold.

Until I wasn’t. My mind doesn’t, apparently, work in three dimensions. But oh how I loved the shapes and pattern and abstract design the architecture program started with. I adored my architecture professor, so I listened when he steered me towards graphic design. It made sense, but frankly I was a little disappointed. Shouldn’t a college major — and career — be something more academic? Something hard? I’d spent my whole adolescence writing long letters to international pen pals. Designing a logo and business card for my cousin, who shared my initials and—by virtue of being the older of us—was president of the KAO Club. I wrote letters in the form of colored and illustrated newsletters. I created pictures from rows of Xs and Os typed on a basic word processor. I traced fancy typography and wore out sets of markers coloring patterns in geometric design coloring books. It wasn’t anything special. It was just what I did.

And you know what? It turns out, graphic design was the perfect career choice for me. Twenty-four years after college, I am still pleased to be working full time in this career field.

Last month I turned in the manuscript for my 2015 book, The Art of Praying Upside Down, to my publisher. The biggest surprise as I wrote? Discovering that my book wasn’t some wild departure from what I already knew. Shouldn’t writing a book require some magic? Some hard work?

Well, let’s be honest. It was hard work. But it wasn’t hard like learning a new language, or starting from scratch and having to trudge through an instruction manual line by line. I didn’t have to search far and wide for the content. It just was, much as the newsletters and logos and drawings I played with in high school prepared me for the career in graphic design that I didn’t know I wanted—but which reflected exactly my natural talents and inclinations.

My book came from the core of who I am, from the sum total of my life experiences, personality quirks, spiritual growth, and professional experience. It grew from my relationships, friendships, family, hurts and hardships and highs and lows. It wasn’t a new approach to seeing or experiencing life. It was more like recording and recounting what I already knew, the specific ways I’ve always viewed the world and my faith.

This realization may not seem monumental to you, but it was to me. And the reason I’m sharing this is because I know there are a lot of writers out there—potentially very good writers—who aren’t writing because they’re waiting for that special magic. For a big revelatory moment, with flashing lights around a neon sign and a voice from heaven saying, “Do this unique and special thing that is set apart, that is a total departure from who you are, from how you live!”

For most of us, though, it won’t be a big departure. Who you already are will play a huge part in what you write. If you’re feeling the need to write, but are stymied by the “what,” take heart. You don’t have to go far to discover the answer. Go ahead and spend some time exploring and discovering who you are, how you see things, how you feel, what you love. As much as I’d like to be part of what seems to me to be the more glamorous world of fiction, my natural predisposition is towards creative nonfiction, essays, inspirational pieces. I’m finally OK with that.

Don’t fight your natural tendencies. Write what you know. What you love. What you think. What you feel.

Write from who you are.

And in doing that—whether you write fiction or nonfiction or poetry or fantasy or music or journals or articles or some experimental thing we don’t even know about yet—you will find your direction.