Shifting Gears
Sat 2005-12-17 00:05:54 (in context)
- 52,650 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 56.50 hrs. revised
- 52,880 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 96.75 hrs. revised
Heck with it.
The Averatec laptop is in the shop. Its Windows XP install proved too far gone to repair. An attempt to load a new XP installation over the top (which, if successful, would have allowed me to boot up and actually get to my files) failed to the tune of "Cannot install. C:\ is corrupted." So here I wait, twiddling my thumbs, hoping that the files I was able to see on the disk during a CD boot to DOS operation are indeed recoverable.
And the novel? Apparently I hadn't backed it up once since beginning to work on it this month. Didn't back up a copy of the new chapter outline last week after the IHOP session. Didn't upload to the web server a copy of the novel after working on it in Indiana. I'm a ditz. A total ditz.
So I could continue working on it now, just leave a blank line with a ### in it to mark where the temporarily (knock on wood) unavailable version of the manuscript had progressed, but...
Heck with it.
There is no way that Becoming Sara Peltier would be ready for submission in the next week even if my laptop hadn't taken a nose dive. No, that's OK--Delacorte's Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel is just going to go another year without my manuscript among its contestants.
Meanwhile, word on the street is that I'll hear one way or another about The Drowning Boy by the end of the month. And that novel was backed up along with everything else shortly after November ended. Copied to ZIP drive, burned to CD, the works. So. Today I dove back into it. When we last left Brian, he had finally met the mermaids. Things were very tense. I'd been uncertain how to get the tension to shift so that the story could continue--I sort of had him all curled up in a floating ball of used-to-be-human misery amidst personal demons and suchlike. But tonight, hanging out at the downtown Borders while my husband browsed the aisles, I finally had a spark that just might lead to the end of chapter 11. So that's all better.
So there's the novelling side of things. Back over on the technical difficulties side, I wanna give a shout out to Ken. He used to be a tech for Computer Renaissance back when I bought this Averatec and had the data recovered off the fatally flawed Toshiba Satellite. Now he's working down the street from me at PC Express. He took time out of a morning full of 'xtreme custom computer building to totally hold my hand through the Windows XP repair attempts. He knew I'd have to take it away to Comp Ren because of them holding my 3-year extended warranty--heck, he encouraged me to take it over there--but he took the time to help me out and provide moral support anyway. Damn cool guy, that Ken. You should totally haul your boxes over to PC Express for upgrades and give him some business.
(And super-duper thanks to Willow for pointing me in Ken's direction!)