Word files and safe storage

27 August

How many times have you been advised to back up all your data? There’s a chance we might perhaps become blasé over the warning though. Yesterday I panic cos I seemed to have lost two set of data somehow. The first was when I highlighted yesterday’s blog to copy over to my blog page, well, it didn’t copy over and I thought it had just disappeared. It took me a few minutes of panic before I got it back; obviously, I did get it back of course.

What I have lost are two files I use alongside the main file of and Bristol Fashion. The story itself is safe and I added around a thousand words to it, but I’ve ‘lost’ the two support files I use. Well, I know where they are, on a spate hard drive I have, but that has totally failed now. I was able to copy all the photos on there to me hard drive on the lappy nut after several hours of doing that I wanted a break from it. Now I can’t get into it at all and W10 won’t see the damned thing.

These two files I use are useful to me, it’s an idea that came to mind while I was writing my second novel. Basically, there’s one file with all the character names on it which get added to as the story grows. The second is a time-line of the story where I note major story points. Both of these files are really worth doing for when you want to check a name or go back and look at an earlier passage and can’t find it straight away. So yesterday I had to start all over with the time-line, although I have used the names list from Shipshape and added the follow-up names to that one. Both files have now been backed up to a USB stick, a SD card and to W10s own cloud storage facility. They should be safe now.

Kile is in now with us until Tuesday at least, so we have to look at finding something for him do now. Jan was hoping to take him off locally for the day but the weather has stop that with high probability of rain all over this area. So, Plan B come’s into effect; that means me setting up me lappy in the bedroom so I can get on sort out those two files and then get on and get some actual writing done.

Shipshape is around 53,000 words; and Bristol Fashion is currently at 38,000. I think it will probably be stretched to around 60 or 70,000 words by the time it’s done. I do enjoy the writing part, but the proofing and editing really is a nightmare, no wonder the pros get it done by an editor. Of course, even then the writer has to actually do the corrections. It would help me no end though if I had a real writing space. Jan and Kile want to play on the Wii and that is why they I shall be de-camping to the bedroom later – peace and quiet in there.

We’re watching the last of the Animal Park shows we recorded over the last week. They’ve introduced a new presenter, a Scots lass, and she has a bloody awful loud, high-pitched voice. It seems that the keepers were copying her and it made it a noisy for the few minutes she was on; good job we have a volume control eh.

Well, photo time methinks … Whipsnade has a dinosaur area too, seems like a lot a zoos have them now. This shot …

of a T-rex head was probably one of the best shots of the day really. It looks an impressive beast, but hang on a mo … that colouring is nothing but a guess. In reality very few T-rex fossils have been found, and none of them have been complete. There is of course, no indication of how they really looked while alive. So while we enjoy looking at these wide-ass-guesses, we should so with a very large shovel of salt!

 

Today’s funny then …

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Luke.
Luke who?
Luke through the keyhole and you'll find out.