Lisa Yee (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} lisayee) wrote,@ 2007-09-23 23:34:00 |
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She's Come Undone
Warning: If my editors Arthur Levine or Cheryl Klein are reading this, STOP NOW. Do not pass go. Have a latte or a piece of candy instead . . .
Have you ever been in love? So in love that you don't ask questions, you just keep moving forward with little regard for how things should be? That happened to me and I got burned BIG TIME.
Some of you may recall that earlier this year I WIPED OUT MY ENTIRE COMPUTER.
Twice.
Twice.
(Above: Michael, my computer guy, was not amused.)
Well, this isn't as bad. But it's still really bad. This time I WIPED OUT MY ENTIRE NOVEL. Here's the sad, but true, story . . .
1. Someone got a new writing program called Scrivener.
2. Someone didn't read the directions.
3. Someone (thought they) finally got the hang of it.
4. Someone fell in love with Scrivener.
5. Someone was able to organize her notes, create separate chapters, outline and pick winning lottery numbers with her new computer program. (One of those is made up.)
6. Someone was revising her novel which is due this week, when she decided to look up the word "long" as in "her hair was long."
7. Someone went to "find" and typed in the word "long."
8. Someone (accidentally) hit the replace key.
9. Someone realized that she had typed in the word "long" in the wrong place.
10. Someone started screaming when she looked and discovered that EVERYWHERE there was a BLANK SPACE (yes, like between every word) the word "long" had been inserted.
In a panic, Someone clicked enough buttons to insure that what she had just done could NEVER be undone. Here's what the first page looked like . . .
Now imagine THREE HUNDRED more pages like this. Or don't. It gives me a headache/heartache to think about it. Especially since I sorta fixed it, by typing in the word "long" and replacing it with a blank space. Only, I forgot to add the blank space, and ended up not only the word long gone, but ALL SPACING ENTIRELY AND COMPLETELY OBLITERATED so that it looked like this . . .
Iamalreadystartingtoseedisturbingchanges.B
Luckily (?) Someone had backed up her document from the day before (because of this). However, a full day's work was lost, plus all her delightful Scrivener formatting and outlining functions.
The saddest thing of all was that it's fairly certain that Someone lost THE BEST writing she had EVER done in her ENTIRE life. Heck, it was probably THE BEST writing ANYONE, including Shakespeare, Harper Lee, and David Sedaris, had ever done in their entire life(s).
Only now we'll never know, will we?
Sigh.
Perhaps I ought to stay clear of computers . . .
Speaking of newspapers (pretend we were), there a nice review of MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS in Sunday's Los Angeles Times Book Reviews by Kids.
Also, if you'd to commiserate with Someone or say hi or make fun of her, I will be at the Moon Festival at South Pasadena High School from 2:30 - 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. (Disclaimer: On my author appearance calendar, I called it the NEW MOON Festival. A typo/hommage to Stephenie Meyer, perhaps?)
On Sunday I'll be on a Dork, Geeks, Dweebs & Freaks Panel at the West Hollywood Book Fair.
BTW, I came across this article that claims 16,000 hyphens have gone missing from the dictionary. It's probably all my fault.
Warning: If my editors Arthur Levine or Cheryl Klein are reading this, STOP NOW. Do not pass go. Have a latte or a piece of candy instead . . .
Have you ever been in love? So in love that you don't ask questions, you just keep moving forward with little regard for how things should be? That happened to me and I got burned BIG TIME.
Some of you may recall that earlier this year I WIPED OUT MY ENTIRE COMPUTER.
Twice.
Twice.
(Above: Michael, my computer guy, was not amused.)
Well, this isn't as bad. But it's still really bad. This time I WIPED OUT MY ENTIRE NOVEL. Here's the sad, but true, story . . .
1. Someone got a new writing program called Scrivener.
2. Someone didn't read the directions.
3. Someone (thought they) finally got the hang of it.
4. Someone fell in love with Scrivener.
5. Someone was able to organize her notes, create separate chapters, outline and pick winning lottery numbers with her new computer program. (One of those is made up.)
6. Someone was revising her novel which is due this week, when she decided to look up the word "long" as in "her hair was long."
7. Someone went to "find" and typed in the word "long."
8. Someone (accidentally) hit the replace key.
9. Someone realized that she had typed in the word "long" in the wrong place.
10. Someone started screaming when she looked and discovered that EVERYWHERE there was a BLANK SPACE (yes, like between every word) the word "long" had been inserted.
In a panic, Someone clicked enough buttons to insure that what she had just done could NEVER be undone. Here's what the first page looked like . . .
Now imagine THREE HUNDRED more pages like this. Or don't. It gives me a headache/heartache to think about it. Especially since I sorta fixed it, by typing in the word "long" and replacing it with a blank space. Only, I forgot to add the blank space, and ended up not only the word long gone, but ALL SPACING ENTIRELY AND COMPLETELY OBLITERATED so that it looked like this . . .
Iamalreadystartingtoseedisturbingchanges.B
Luckily (?) Someone had backed up her document from the day before (because of this). However, a full day's work was lost, plus all her delightful Scrivener formatting and outlining functions.
The saddest thing of all was that it's fairly certain that Someone lost THE BEST writing she had EVER done in her ENTIRE life. Heck, it was probably THE BEST writing ANYONE, including Shakespeare, Harper Lee, and David Sedaris, had ever done in their entire life(s).
Only now we'll never know, will we?
Sigh.
Perhaps I ought to stay clear of computers . . .
Speaking of newspapers (pretend we were), there a nice review of MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS in Sunday's Los Angeles Times Book Reviews by Kids.
Also, if you'd to commiserate with Someone or say hi or make fun of her, I will be at the Moon Festival at South Pasadena High School from 2:30 - 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. (Disclaimer: On my author appearance calendar, I called it the NEW MOON Festival. A typo/hommage to Stephenie Meyer, perhaps?)
On Sunday I'll be on a Dork, Geeks, Dweebs & Freaks Panel at the West Hollywood Book Fair.
BTW, I came across this article that claims 16,000 hyphens have gone missing from the dictionary. It's probably all my fault.
