Everyone take a deep breath and keep calm; or, how to backup without really trying
April 11, 2010 at 9:30 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 6 CommentsTags: real life, writing, writing tools
I really haven’t been writing very much lately, for several reasons, the main one being that in two weeks I move to the US to work for three months. It turns out that agreeing to go and work in another country, no matter how temporarily, is incredibly disruptive to one’s equilibrium – surprise, surprise! However, everything’s mostly organised now, and I am definitely on the downward slide to packing my life into a couple of bags and hauling it to another hemisphere for a while. So, typically, the universe had to throw something else at me just to remind me that I was alive: yesterday, through a series of very stupid occurrences, my user profile on this computer got corrupted, and for the space of a couple of hours, I thought I’d lost access to all of my files.
This was very bad, but not as bad as it could have been. It was bad because I had a backup on an external hard drive, but it was from almost a month ago. It was bad because I have 35Gb of music on this machine, and since that backup I’d bought more music which – obviously – I hadn’t yet backed up. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been because although I also have all my writing on this computer, I’ve been using other backup methods aside from the trusty-yet-fraught-with-issues-because-of-user-laziness external hard drive. So, even though for two hours I thought I’d lost a lot of stuff, I knew that I hadn’t lost a single word of any work in progress, of which I have several.
Using those alternative backup methods definitely paid off for me yesterday, and it occurred to me that there are probably other people who could benefit from them, but might not know of them, so here I am to tell you about them. I’m nice like that!
As far as I know, both these things are available for both Windows and Mac, and both are free for a certain amount of disk space. Both require that you download a small program to your hard drive, but downloading and installation was very easy and I’ve not detected that they came with any spyware or malware as of yet, so I think they’re fine.
The first is Windows Live Sync, which you sign into using a Windows Live ID, which you have automatically if you have a Hotmail or Messenger account. If you don’t, it’s still easy to sign up – I signed up using a Gmail address with no problem. Windows Live Sync is more something you’d use if you were in the habit of using multiple computers, like a desktop for home use and a laptop for travelling/times when you’re out and about – it doesn’t actually store any information online, but it ensures that the designated folders get synced between the machines that have Live Sync loaded on them, so that no matter what machine you’re using, the document you’re working on is always the current one, as long as it’s in that folder. I can tell you that the syncing is almost instantaneous – I can save the file on one machine, shut the document down and walk into the other room to my other computer in less than two minutes and access the updated file straight away.
The second thing I’ve been using is called Dropbox, which is free for up to 2 Gb of files. Now, this one is an online backup tool, and well as a synchronisation tool – once you’ve downloaded the programme to the computers that you want to use it on, all you have to do is drop the files into the Dropbox folder, and you have a copy on all your “Dropbox’d” machines and also online, so even if you don’t have access to your computers, you can still access a copy of your docs by logging into the webpage. This one does require that you actually update the file within the Dropbox folder, but if you only work on files within the Dropbox folder, then everything would sync automatically; it would only not sync if you were working on a file from another location, and then didn’t save a copy to the Dropbox folder. It also doesn’t sync on computers that are turned off, obviously, but does update from the webpage straight away when those computers are powered up again.
Both of these methods are similar, but different – I use both, because I’m massively paranoid like that, and also I travel a lot, so I use multiple machines and also computers that aren’t necessarily mine, so having things stored on a webpage is an additional safeguard against being caught without access to files I might need, without having to remember to save everything to a USB drive and keep track of that. If I was to choose to use only one, it would be Dropbox, but your mileage may vary.
Hopefully this is news to some of you, and hopefully one of these things will save you from panic just like they saved me yesterday. As someone who has also had to build their profile again from scratch, installing all programs as if they were completely new, I’d also recommend the Firefox extension Xmarks bookmarks and passwords sync, but that’s a story for another day…
Edited to fix links, because I am a muppet
Original snippets ahoy!
March 2, 2010 at 10:09 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: cowboys, snippets, writing
I am terrible at updating this thing. I’d say I’ll get better, but I probably won’t, let’s face it.
February was not a good writing month for me. Life took over as it often does, and I wrote hardly anything. But it’s March now, and so that gives me an excuse to forget February and have a really productive March instead. I’m still plodding on with the cowboys story, which I think now has a name, possibly. *shifty eyes* Since I haven’t looked at it for a week or so, I’ve been reading it over, and I’ve decided to post some snippets, to keep me motivated. Now, bear in mind that they’re first draft snippets, but for all that I think they’re pretty clean draft-wise, and I’m fairly certain both scenes will make it into the final draft in some form or another. I apologise in advance for any typos or awkwardness – I can’t see any, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. These have not had the fine-tooth comb treatment.
So, some scene setting: Australia, present day. Our first hero is Michael, a vet from Sydney who has decided to move to the country to start a new life. Here he meets our second hero, Ryan, an ex-mounted policeman who is back on his family’s cattle farm after a few years away for family reasons. Ryan has stock horses now that he’s not a copper anymore, and competes with them with an eye to building himself a nice little stud farm with his prize-winning mares.
In this first snippet, Michael’s sister Jen is visiting him, and Ryan has invited them to the farm, ostensibly so that Jen’s horse-mad son can look at his horses, but really so that he can spend some time looking at Michael. Natch.
Apocalypse now. Or quite soon, anyway.
February 14, 2010 at 8:40 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 CommentsTags: new zealand, real life, writing
It’s valentine’s day in my part of the world, so naturally this is the day when a young person’s (or not so young person, as the case may be *cough*) thoughts turn to the apocalypse.
Before I moved to New Zealand, I had no idea that Auckland sits on an active hot spot of magma that’s only about 100 km underneath the city.
The type of volcanic activity which has created the Auckland volcanic field is referred to as monogenetic which means that each time there has been an eruption it has occurred at a new location and that each eruption is the result of a single batch of magma which rises from its source in the mantle about 100km beneath the city.
The monogenetic nature of Auckland’s volcanoes has particular implications for volcanic hazards because in the event of an eruption, rather than one of the existing volcanoes becoming active, a new volcano will form. Because of this situation, a hazard map based on any one location cannot be drawn and the entire field has to be considered as under a threat of a future volcanic eruption.
Although it is at least 600 years since the last eruption in the Auckland volcanic field, there is every reason to expect eruptions in the future.
These eruptions are likely to be on a small scale compared with some recent overseas eruptions, but because the city of Auckland is built on and around potential eruption sites their effects are likely to be serious.
EXCELLENT. I CAN’T WAIT.
The volcanoes in Auckland are everywhere. For instance, there’s Mount Eden. Or Mangere mountain. Or Rangitoto, which I can see every day when I go for my walk, from the top of my street.
As if that’s not bad enough, my hairdresser – a volcano nut, who I saw yesterday – tells me that there have been quite a few earthquakes in the Hauraki Gulf over the past couple of months, which is of course indicative of potential volcanic activity. He says that he’s sure that we’ll see a new volcano forming off Auckland’s coast at some point during the next year or two. He says that if that happens, while everyone is being evacuated, he will be in his car, driving toward the volcano. He is SUCH a boy.
If that happens, I will be in my car as well, but I’ll be bawling my eyes out and driving as fast as I can to the airport, on my way back to a CIVILISED country (i.e., AUSTRALIA), where we don’t have to watch out for random LAVA FLOWS, for God’s sake.
Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to the apocalypse. There’s been a rash of apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic movies and books around lately, from 2012 to The Road. It doesn’t actually surprise me, given that you only have to turn on the TV to see that the world’s pretty much going to hell in a handbasket, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the number of stories concerned with the end of the world as we know it is increasing as the number of reports of how we’re running our planet into the ground increase. It’s the ultimate what-if, in a way – if the world as we knew it was changed irrevocably, through whatever means, how would we survive? Presuming we weren’t wiped out completely, of course, and even then something would likely evolve to replace us. Or would we escape, build space arks or something and carry ourselves away, missing the destruction completely? It’s an interesting question, and I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with to answer it.
January 24, 2010 at 8:04 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: cowboys, research, wips, writing
They say you learn something new every day.
Today’s lesson: how to pregnancy test a cow. My life, honestly.
However, as I just said to empty_tea, if getting my main character to stick his hand up a hundred cow’s rectums is going to get him laid, then so be it. It’s all for a good cause!
Saviours and saints, devils and heathens alike
January 23, 2010 at 12:47 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 8 CommentsTags: cowboys, research, wips, writing
It’s noisy in New Zealand today. I’ve got diggers in the next door neighbour’s yard, my landlord dismantling the fence at the back of my place to allow a digger in there. Diggers to the left of me, diggers to the right. I’m waiting for them all to STFU so that I can get some writing done. Theoretically I could go to the library to write, but I really can’t be arsed. Although I should, since my goal for today is 3000 words. But honestly, I doubt I’ll reach that, so I’ll be happy with 1500 after a week of nothing – yay for self-defeating low expectations.
These days I have a little folder full of bookmarks for research, and it occurred to me the other day that it would be pretty easy to guess what I’m working on at the moment just based on them. There are links to websites with info on:
Campdrafting
Tentpegging (if you look at the link you’ll see it’s a sport, not something where you take your partner away to the bush to play with sex toys 😉 )
Australian stock horses
The design of Australian stock saddles
The NSW Mounted Police
Cattle stations/cattle farming in Australia
Agriculture in Australia
Various events being held in northern NSW country towns
Horse stud farms
Australian place names of aboriginal origin
Australian geographical name derivations
I’ve also got saved on my hard drive documents on how to castrate calves and lambs, worming cattle, veterinary involvement in large animal farming in Australia. There are definitely no prizes for guessing what the story’s about, although hopefully when it’s done all these links won’t be all it’s about.
Another thing that can be said about all that is: god bless the internet! One of the tentpegging rule books even has a diagram with the layout of the field, for god’s sake. How on earth did we all find this information when it wasn’t at our fingertips?
Promotional stuff
December 6, 2009 at 11:24 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentIt’s Torquere author chat day at the Talking Two Lips yahoo group today. You have to join the group to see the messages, unfortunately, but membership is open so at least you don’t have to wait to be approved.
I’m involved in an interesting discussion there about writing a character with a specific sense of place about them rather than the Every(wo)man character which we often see, who might be nominally American or Australian or British, but could really be from anywhere. Obviously I’m still obsessed with the issues that I brought up in my last post, but I’m still mindful of the fact that where they were brought up influences a person just as much as how they were brought up, and how to bring that to a character in a way that will allow readers of a similar background to recognise them and identify with them. It’s not very easy.
There have been two more review of the Care and Feeding of Demons anthology where nice things have been said about Reasonable Force, so that’s a fabulous thing. The first one is at Reviews by Jessewave, and said (in part, at least):
I very much liked the character of Daniel and empathised greatly with his grief and how he used his aggressive behaviour to deal with that. I also liked that the relationship between Daniel and Karim wasn’t something that was wrapped up in a neat bow, but we are left with the promise of things to come – an ideal ending for such a short story, especially one packed with so much detail as this.
The second review is at Coffee Time Romance, and said (in part):
Daniel is a protector on the edge since losing his best friend and partner. He is unsure how to handle the new demon; kiss him or kill him (To which I say, bwahahaha!! That is so true!)
It also said:
….I loved how despite all that, Korim is unable to stop following Daniel in order to just be near him. Meredith Shayne expertly drew the reader to the demon and made us root for him.
How lovely it is to get reviews like that. I am thrilled that people are taking the time to read my work and write these reviews, and that they like what I’ve done.
Tags: twitter
I have succumbed to Twitter. I’m not entirely sure why, because God knows I do not need another tool for procrastination, but there you have it.
I know that some of you also have Twitter accounts, so if you could tell me what names those are under so I can find you, that would be fab. Mine is under my author pen name, and is here.
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
December 2, 2009 at 10:29 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: australia, real life
I was going to write tonight, and I haven’t. So in the absence of one type of writing, I’ll do another.
I’ve been in a very Australian mood lately, so much so that I’ve been really noticing it. I mean, I’m downloading Australian Crawl, Icehouse and Cold Chisel songs off iTunes, for God’s sake. That is really taking it quite far in the scheme of things, I reckon, to have Khe Sanh in my iTunes library. I was wondering why I was in such a mood, but today it occurred to me that what it actually is is shared experience, or rather, the lack of shared experience that exists for someone who doesn’t live in the place where they grew up.
A friend of mine is Scottish, but has been in NZ for ten years. He was telling me today that he met a couple of people from Glasgow over the weekend, and he had a great time talking with them about places in Glasgow where they all used to go, pubs and clubs and cafes, etc. My friend and these people didn’t grow up together, but the experiences of their youth and early adulthood were very similar, and he said he was struck by how much he enjoyed talking about all these old haunts. It doesn’t really surprise me though, because I find that too. There aren’t many Australians here, and I often find myself explaining things to people here that I wouldn’t have to explain if I was in Australia. I’ve even stopped using certain expressions, because if I say them then I have to explain what they mean, and getting blank looks about things you say gets old after a while. Obviously when I go back to Australia this doesn’t happen to me, and I do notice the difference. So I completely understand the relief that comes with being able to say anything you like and be instantly understood, or to talk about a place without needing to describe what it’s like.
What’s compounding these issues for me at the moment is that I’m reading a fantastically entertaining book set in Australia (Sean Kennedy’s Tigers and Devils, and it is so good I can’t even find the words to express it), and I’m really noticing that the characters are Australian, and not in a bad way – I said to another friend when I was telling her about how much I liked the book that “they speak how I speak”, and that’s true, and it’s something that you don’t often see, or I don’t anyway, not in the stories I read. And since I don’t get that in real life either, there’s an almost continuous ‘shock of recognition’ feeling associated with it.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this, and I don’t mean to imply that this lack of ‘Australian-ness’ upsets me in any way – I love living in NZ, and I have no plans to move back to Australia any time soon, if ever. Most of the time Australia doesn’t even feel like home anymore, to be honest. I don’t even really notice the lack of shared experience in NZ for the most part, except when something reminds me, like the book, or stories of Scottish lads and their old hangouts. It’s just funny that these things have conspired all at once to make me think about it.
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