Living & Writing About Life

My life has been pretty busy insane lately thanks to doctor visits, plumbing issues ( we're talking having to redo almost the ENTIRE system under our house. Seriously, people... that was NOT fun), and the beginnings of the end of the school year marathon. That last one? Yeah, it's been awesome.

We do supplement school work year round (shout out to all my homeschool friends HERE!) but our kids are back in public school and we are glad for it... sort of. Do I miss the not wanting to do the work? No. ( oh wait, that happens doing their homework now)  Do I miss setting up teaching plans? Meh... I do it weekly, especially for summer work so that one doesn't really count.   Do I miss waking the kids up at 8 am instead of the 5:30 am schedule they are on now? OMG yes! lol   Do I enjoy being able to work on my manuscript with all 3 children now in school? Most definitely.

The life of a writer isn't normally wrapped up in an office working 9 to 5. We normally don't do the whole Monday thru Friday routine that most others are forced to do.  Sitting in our pajamas with our hair sticking up in all directions (courtesy of  the 6 yr old hiding my brush as a joke... thanks sweetheart!) while I have my characters making out? GREAT!  Kicking back with the laptop with a bag of almonds while I shamelessly murder another victim?  RELAXATION at its finest....

Uh huh...  We have it hard in many ways, especially people with hyper issues (Ahem... sorry, I had to get a drink, let out the dog, check my facebook,  work on editing my manuscript). The ability to not only focus but to actually sit down and write out the words can be difficult. Life happens. We answer our phones, feed the animals (chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats, fish... omg WHERE did they all come from?), feeding our families, pay bills, get bored... you see where I'm going with this? lol  The cool thing is that we can take all of our family "stuff" and use it. Put it out there so others can enjoy it (except the chickens part, Fabreeze anyone?). So, get out and enjoy your life. Live your life then come home and write about it. Whether it's a blog, a journal, or a manuscript on how you live- just go do it... after checking facebook, email, ummm... yeah.

The Importance of SAVING your work...

So, let me just say that everybody knows to save their work. I know this. You know this. It's not a hard thing to do. Right? Yeah, how we about talk about saving your works in more than one place?

I know. I admit it. I saved my work on a flash drive and only a flash drive. In my mind, I was thinking that by keeping it on the flash drive, I wouldn't have to worry about losing anything if my laptop was hacked (which it was), if it was infected with malware (which it happened), or if the hard drive crashed (Oh God, where's the wood for me to knock on?) Okay, so the last one hasn't happened yet.  YET.

Seven months of work~ I am almost completely finished with my 2nd book and I am super-excited about it. It is GREAT. I love it....

I can't open the file on the flash drive because suddenly it has become corrupted.

I tried for hours to get it back... and then cried for another hour because I couldn't. This happened on a Saturday night so there were NO computer shops open. I patiently waited (insert the words panic, hyperventilate, insanity... you pick) until Monday morning for the shops to open and was at the door waiting, flash drive in hand.  Thankfully, the pc guy I use is a pc God.  It took him a few hours (he had never retrieved anything from a flash drive before) and he got almost the entire file back. He only lost about three thousand words. 

Don't worry, I had a hard copy of the missing file but the rest of the hard copy was gone. Where, you ask?  Ask my daughter's cat....   Now I am working on editing and finishing up the last few chapters. Just so you know, it is now saved on a new flashdrive... and my computer's hard drive.  My lesson has been learned.  Now I just need to redo my hard copy....