Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Mortality of Computers, and a Story Update

My laptop finally died earlier this week - the video chipset is toast, so it sorta boots but the screen stays black which does me absolutely no good.

Fortunately, I have an older laptop that is still functional and actually in remarkably good condition, loaded with Ubuntu Linux. I powered it up yesterday, downloaded 450MB worth of software updates, and now I'm good to go. Downloaded the Linux beta of Scrivener and got that installed, too, so I can even work on my novel.

Eventually, maybe in the next couple of months, I will get a new computer. This one, while quite functional, is over 5 years old, with a dead battery, and the wireless doesn't seem to be working either (I think it's actually a Linux issue, but would need to install Windows to find out for sure). Fortunately for me, I can leave it plugged into the wall in my den, both power and network - I was smart enough to run network cabling while I was working on my basement finishing project, so both my theater and my den are wired for 100 MB networking.

Anyway, here's a quick update on the story: I'm still reading through the rough draft at this point, a little over a third of the way through. Per the plan, I'm not taking any notes as I read, except maybe a few mental ones. After this read-through, I'll take a little bit of time away, then come back for a more thorough read-through, which will entail taking extensive notes as I go.

I've never actually gotten this far with previous novels. Although I have completed several stories and even completed draft revisions on them, I have never gone to as much effort with those as I am planning to do with this one. And I'm doing the extra work this time simply because I want to get past writing as a hobby, and see if I can turn it into a money-making business. Not that I intend to quit my job any time soon. But slow and steady wins a lot of races, and I'm in this one for the long term, with no expectations of over-night stardom as an author. If I get a few sales on this book, it will be enough encouragement for me to continue writing and publishing more books.

No comments:

Post a Comment