Heir To Magic

I have started working on Heir to Magic again.  I am approaching it with a new scheme for writing. I started to plot it out using index cards like I had the first time, but I have changed my schemes and am instead going to try recreating the novel entirely in yWriter.

I’ve downloaded the latest edition of yWriter, yWriter5, which was released this past December. I can never thank Simon Haynes enough for allowing his fellow writers to make use of such a wonderful tool for writing. Particularly now as I am striving to get my novel salvaged from the scrambled mess that is my brain, sleep deprivation, stress and cold having made my brain so useless that I am still trying to write this single post over 14 hours after I began working on it.

Writing the novel is going to be a very very slow process. ::sigh::

My first step, after downloading yWriter5, has been to create a new project and put 25 chapters in it. I have now began creating the scenes that I can remember and putting them in chapters that are roughly where the scene will be in the finished novel. I then select “Tools > Display scene list” and bring up a box showing the scenes in the novel along with (among other information) what chapters each scene is in, word counts, POV character and a brief description of the scene. From here I can print this listing to allow me to sit back in a chair, watching the fire in the fireplace as I make notes about what scenes are missing and which ones I need to move around.

I’m currently waiting for my printer driver to download (at 19% as I write this), so I can work on the scenes later tonight, for now, I am going to go find something that might help me wake up some - or maybe take a nap… I haven’t decided.

I’m saddened to say that I have restarted my novel. I did not want to, I was quite happy to finish it off, however… life is apparently determined that I start out 2009 with a full clean slate.

On the 28th of December my computer got infected by the virtumonde virus, resulting in a situation very much like the one this fellow described. I, however, could not get onto anoher computer to access forums for help, and virtumonde disabled everything right down to my ability to print my novel. :::wails!!!::: So, I have been forced to save my laptop by resetting it to factory specifications, and given the hard lesson of why I should backup my writing - OFF MY COMPUTER - every night before I shut down the writing program to surf the Internet or check my e-mail.

Still growling about idiots that have nothing better to do with their time than make viruses and crap like that.

Okay, it is that time of year again, so here is one of my New Years Resolutions - To work on Heir To Magic.

I have neglected the poor story, getting depressed when I lost what I had been working on on yet ANOTHER computer.  I found it on a thumb drive just before Thanksgiving… and lost that thumb drive again.  I am going to find that, then print it out and save to two CDs.  I’ll put the thumb drive and one CD in the safe, the other CD will be a CD-RW I can modify with new copies of the novel from time to time with a monthly backup to the stuff in the safe.  The printout will be for rereading and making notes.  As I add to the novel here on out, I will print each chapter as it is finished.

I keep telling myself to get back to work on this story, but every time I think about needing to work on it I am busy with something else that is currently paying me to work on it instead.  Right now it is a couple of advertisements I am working on for people and some transcription work that I have been given.  The transcription is cool, it is something I have considered more than a few times, so getting the chance to work on a transcription project is really nice.  I’m thinking about adding that to my list of stuff I do, but might hold off and see how I feel about it after I finish with this project.

For now, Heir to Magic is on pause, still, while I try to get through the holidays and into the new year.  I’ll revisit it when I am working on my new year’s resolutions.

I’ve been so fried out and frazzled that you would not even believe it.  The past few months I have been on a very fine line between “I’m doing good” and screaming and throwing things at walls.  It’s not helping my sanity any to sit here in the house and look around and know that if something happens to my dad that … that’s it.  I pack up whatever I can manage to fit into a few boxes and tuck it into the trunk of the car and…

And what.  I have about $200 I could scrape together and no hope of beingable to get approved for a loan to save my parents house.  I can’t even afford an airline ticket to somewhere warm enough to camp out until I could afford rent on a low rent apartment.  Forget being able to take my dogs with me.  I would have to leave me, mom and dad’s dogs with someone else.  The Wookie would last about a week then die of stress.

So, if I don’t seem to be keeping this blog updated, if I seem to have flipped off NaNoWriMo, if I seem to have stopped working on Heir to Magic — I have other things on my mind.  I’m trying to think of how I can save my parents house and pounding my head against a wall.