Terescia's thoughts and such.

Several years ago, Simon Haynes, author of the Hal Spacejock series, and creator of fabulous software for writers and readers including yWriter, declared November 3rd to be International Backup Day. Since I completely agree that I, like most people, never back up as often as I should, I decided I would promote the day as widely as possible.

It’s important to make regular backups. I’ve lost work, although never so much that I couldn’t recover gracefully, but I know people (and of people) who weren’t so lucky.

Make a backup of every book you’ve written and every book you’re working on. Back up your research. Back up your financial data.

Back it all up because the day will come when you’ll be thankful you have those backups!

As for me, I back up to DVD, Flash Drives, a partitioned drive, gmail, google docs, and my laptop. I always make sure to include my appdata so I get copies of my Outlook and Thunderbird email and other files it’s easy to forget about.

Do you do your backups?

I’ve found a new tool to shave a bit of time off my internet rituals. I’ve discovered Flock, a web browser based on the Mozilla Firefox browser I currently use — but am now weaning myself from. Flock has a feature that lets me set up multiple blogs and post to them easily. In fact, I love the blog editor built into Flock. I don’t have to log it to a bunch of different interfaces to post. I was using w.bloggar, and it was great, but frankly most of the time I would forget to use it. I don’t do that with Flock because the blog editor is built into the browser. Because of that, it’s just harder to forget about it. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve spent the weekend really getting used to yWriter from Spacejock Software (listed on my Software for Writers page).

I knew yWriter was a good program, because I’ve used it before, but since WriteWay Pro has been my main writing software for the last few years, I haven’t spent much time playing around with other software.

However, I recently started a new project and decided to give yWriter a shot this time, because I wanted to try something that used true text files–that way I can move my files around and even edit them on my pda without having to save it between formats.

If you haven’t tried yWriter and you’d like something powerful and free, try it. yWriter is an excellent, full-featured program. Nowadays, this programs has almost all of the features that I love in the WriteWay Pro program, including the ability to track work count progress (although not detailed like WWP’s reports), keep text notes on characters, print outlines/synopsis, work with a storyboard, and edit scenes independently of each other without losing the convenience of fewer files. (yWriter keeps the text files separated into chapters, whereas WWP is one single file.)

Give yWriter a try and let me know what you think about it. Are there particular features you like or don’t like?

I haven’t found anything that I didn’t like on the program, other than the inability to use italics or underlines. Other than that, I don’t do much formating of my work until I’m editing in the final stages.

I’ve been writing more articles lately, relative to fiction, and I’ve noticed a transition back to Microsoft Word. For all my website coding and page building, I continue to use NoteTab, and I adore EverNote for jotting notes and ideas, but for some reason I find myself scared to actually write in the program. Maybe I don’t fully trust its capabilities yet.

I write fiction exclusively in WriteWay Pro. It’s a good program that fits my needs in that area of writing.

Word, on the other hand, lets me write articles quickly. I don’t have to sacrifice time with the spell check because I keep the autocorrect turned on and the squiggly lines let me know when something I’ve spelled is questionable. The grammar check gives me notice that I might need to take a second look at a sentence or paragraph. I don’t always follow the advice it gives, but it helps eliminate work in the editing phase.

My point here is don’t let yourself get caught in a rut, using programs that aren’t the best programs for any given task. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Take advantage of them.

I’ve updated my writers’ software page on Happily Ever After. I’ve recently added a couple of new programs to the listing.

Of them all, I think EverNote is the most promising. I use it obsessively to keep track of almost every aspect of my life. Sample categories include projects (new home, genealogy), writing (market, research, book specific subcategories), contacts, website projects, and lots more. This program is so intuitive and simple to use, yet powerful.

Another promising program that I’ve tried out a couple of times (although I haven’t spent loads of time using it) is Text Block Writer. This one is a very close representation of a big bulletin board and a set of index cards. The freedom with which it lets you shift things around is fabulous.

Although I really liked it, I probably won’t use it much because I no longer use index cards. I used to, but once I found WriteWay Pro, I’ve had much better luck keeping all my notes together there.

I don’t imagine I’ll find something to replace WriteWay Pro any time soon. The program just works too perfectly for me and my writing style. Read my review for more details.

Google has launched a new service that might be of use to authors who are just starting out with a website.

Although it’s my general rule that any author who has a site should have their own domain name (see this article I wrote: Building Your Own Website :: Step 1: Your Domain Name), if you want to test out ideas for your design and for your site, you can certainly take advantage of a free site to get you started.

However, be wary of what you post.

As per Google’s Terms and Conditions:

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the general public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt and publish such Content on Google services solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.

Google goes on to say:

This license terminates when such Content is removed from the Google service to which you originally submitted.

This offers some protection, because you can remove anything you don’t want them to use. However, anything you leave posted is fair game.

Google then tacks on one more condition:

Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any of the services offered by Google.

Having your own domain and hosting your site with a paid provider offers the most protection to any work you might post online, whether it is your original artwork, your fiction, or a series of articles you’d like to share with others.

Wouldn’t you agree?

Comments welcome.

I’m taking a break. From what, you ask? From disorganization and disorder, from the inability to concentrate or focus on any one task long enough to make significant progress to get it done. I’ve discovered order.

Or maybe not. :-) But I have discovered EverNote, a free note-taking application that sparkles so brightly in my future that I feel like I’m in love. And I’ve been using it for exactly one day. :-o

I guess the reason I’m so enamored of this product is because it fits me so perfectly. I have stacks of single-subject notebooks floating around my house with notes upon notes upon notes, and I can never find the note I’m looking for when I really need it. I write everything down. I write on stickys, in tablets, in text files, on my calendar, in my to do lists, in binders, on the telephone book, everywhere, anywhere… This program was made for me.

It suits my writing and my personal life. It even fits well with my website development projects and business notes.

I’ll report back in a few days, weeks, months, and let you know how it goes.

And if you’re a writer who does lots of research, you should seriously consider giving this little powerhouse a try. I don’t think I’ve ever run across a program as well-suited to a writer’s research notes as EverNote.

Okay, I downloaded Blogger for Word, and I’m posting this just to try it out. I’d say something important, but I don’t really have anything important to say right now. :-)

My writing went well today… Is that acceptable?

Looking for software to stop spyware and adware? Think you’ll finally be safe if you switch from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird?

Here’s an interesting tidbit I discovered quite by accident this morning.

Mozilla Firebird isn’t necessarily safer than Internet Explorer… In fact, until today, while using Firefox, I’d never had a piece of software take over my computer or insert itself into my browser without my permission. (I use AdAware and SpyBot on a regular basis, so I know.)

Anyway, did a google search this morning and followed a link to a perfectly reputable looking site, and as I was watching (now that’s bold!) my google search icon was replaced by some freaky little CC in a circle and suddenly my search shows up at some search engine I’ve never heard of before.

Well, suffice to say, I took care of that little problem ASAP, but it made me realize something couldn’t be set up in my browser correctly for such a thing to happen.

Lesson learned: No browser is safe if you don’t have those download properties set up correctly.

Owwie.