Month: August 2018

Corrections abound

Lynn

It was late last night when I wrote all those posts about the writing of my current book, what to call a book, and the day’s progress, and I made some errors. :D

The big one, of course, is that this is not book 21 I’m working on!

This is book 19.

I’ve gone back and edited those posts to take out the wrong information. It just seemed easier that way than trying to note the corrections. :D

I messed up because I used the table I have in my spreadsheet to tell me how many books I have in each category of length: novel, novella, novelette, and short story. That table gave me 18+2=20 for the novel and novella length books.

Or so I thought.

This morning, I remembered something important about that table. It’s pulling data from my “Publish List” which includes every title I’ve published. The table is counting anything over 40,000 words as a novel and is counting a novel that I wrote well before 2012 and that’s no longer published.

I don’t want those two books to count.

The one, I didn’t write but compiled it from stories I’d already written; and the other, well, let me just say it’s old, I’m not sure it’s any good, and I was happy to unpublish it even though it did sell a copy and was one of the things that made me sure I could do this publishing thing for money. :D

Me and late nights do not agree.

So here is the correction:

I have 18 books and 12 short stories. (Between three pen names.)

The book I’m working on now is book 19.

 

Book 19, day 100

Lynn

Today is day 100 for this book.

I detailed out how I came up with that number in my last post about the writing of my current book. It’s a new way for me to keep track of some generally helpful metrics that isn’t about tracking time or worrying about how fast I write.

Knowing how many days I’ve spent on a book is pretty darn awesome information to have and it’ll be right where I can see it every day because I’ll also be using this post title format in OneNote and my journals. I really won’t be able to hide from reality any longer.

I think that’s a good thing. Ask me in a month. :D

Back to the topic at hand though. I’ve let the day get completely away from me, and now it’s late. Probably too late to be trying to get to 500 words before I fall asleep at my computer, but I think I can do it, so I’m going to try anyway. Why give up before I have to?

So here goes. I’ll be back whenever I need a concentration break so I can refocus. Or tomorrow if I fall asleep at the computer—or just don’t have the energy after writing 468 words in the shortest amount of time possible. (I have 32 words already, because I did actually try to work on my book today.)

About the writing of my current book

Lynn

I was looking at my word count spreadsheet today and realized that my “Worked On” column in my “Daily Log” sheet gives me the perfect opportunity to know things about my writing that I might not know otherwise.

Here are some things I found interesting about the writing of my current book (book 19).

3/9/17

I wrote a few words.

12/26/17

I wrote a few more words.

2/16/18
and
2/17/18

I tried to get started on this book in earnest. Didn’t work.

5/9/18

I wrote 100 words but I’m not certain they were all on this book.

5/25/18
to
Present

I started the real work on this book. I’ve had 23 zero word days since 5/25, but since I’m actively working on the book, I’m counting them in the total number of days I’ve been working on this book. :-)

What does that all add up to?

I’ve spent exactly 100 days working on this book (so far).

It’s been 537 days since I first started this book. And that means I’ve had this book in my head for 537 days.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I get bored when writing a book takes too long. I need to stop stalling when it’s time to start the next book—or just not allow myself to start writing until I’m ready to commit.  Even starting the book sets things in motion in my head that make me feel like I’m losing interest when I don’t continue to make progress.

Finally, ouch. It’s been at least 537 days since I put out the last book in this series (make that 685 to be exact). Sigh. This book is going to flop so hard.

And to tie this all up, I’ve finally found a title format I like for my accountability posts: “Book 19, day 100“. It ties in with both this post and the last. I can also imagine this being a nice way to keep up with just how long I’ve spent on any one book (or story) and how many books I’ve written. I like it. :-)

Book: Book 19, day 100.

Short story: Short story 13, day 2.

I only foresee one difficulty with this, if I don’t want to be doing multiple accountability posts when I work on more than one story on any particular day. I’ll just line them all up in the title or I’ll summarize at the top of the post for any I don’t want to do that with. :D

Book 19, day 100; Short story 13, day 2; Book 20, day—Oh no. That’s not going to work. I really don’t always know where some of these books are going to fall in line when I’m writing on them like this. Now I’m sad, because I really liked this idea.

Then again, I am trying not to overdo the multiple story trick. Until I can start regularly writing 2,000 plus words a day, working on more than one story at a time is just another way to take too long finishing any of them.

I’ll have to think about this some more.

Or maybe I won’t have to. I could just stick to only counting the current book as the one with a number, and list any extra work I’m doing on other books in the post sans number. Because truly, it’s only been once or twice out of all 30 titles I’ve written that I haven’t known which book I’m actively trying to finish first so I can publish it.

Whew. Crisis averted.

Now, on to finishing today’s minimum word count. I’ve really not been focused where I need to be today. Today has been a study in procrastination.

What to call a book?

Lynn

All my published titles are books. They’re published individually and that means they’re books.

But when I talk about my books it’s awkward to explain them.

Do I call them books? By that I mean, do I say I have 32 books written and published? Because that really misleads people into thinking I’m talking about novels, when I’m most definitely not.

So do I say titles? I have 32 titles published.

Or do I break it down? I have 18 novels, 2 novellas, 10 novelettes, and 2 short stories published.

But that gets awkward fast. It’s not easy to say, or remember, or explain to those who don’t know what those terms mean. And you’d be surprised how many people outside of publishing just understand books as books and not novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories.

To them, there’s long and short, and that’s it.

I’ve seen even experienced authors not get it right when the conversation turns to story length.

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has a length standard for their awards.

  • Novel: 40,000 words or more
    • Weirdly, novella-length works can be in this category if they’re published as individual works and the author requests it. So is a novella really just a shorter novel as far as SFWA is concerned?
  • Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words
  • Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words
  • Short Story: less than 7,500 words

The Romance Writers of America has a shorter list of length requirements for their awards.

  • Novel = 40,000 words or more (by computer word count)
  • Novella = 20,000–40,000 words (by computer word count)

I have my own personal standard for lengths.

  • Novels > 40,000 words
  • Short novels / novellas > 15,000 to 40,000 words
  • Novelettes > 7,000 to 15,000 words
  • Short Story < 7,000 words

What made me decide on these lengths? My own writing habits. I have several 7,500 word stories and they just didn’t feel the same as the 6,000 word stories. More depth, more going on in the stories. So I adjusted.

Most people just really don’t care about those intermediate lengths. The nomenclature is irrelevant to them. 10,000 words is still “short” to them, and a 25,000 word story is longish. That’s certainly how it feels to me when I’m downloading and reading fan fiction. :D

I think to cover all my bases I’ll just say I’ve written and published 20 books and 12 short stories.

That’ll create the fewest questions, with the largest number of people.

I’m glad that’s decided. Now I can get back to work on my 21st book. :-)

(I’ll note that these numbers count only the books I’ve written to publish since 2012. I’ll just claim everything else as practice and leave it at that.)

Correction: I made a mistake! The numbers in this post are wrong. I have 18 books and 12 short stories. But 31 titles published. Explanation here. :)

I fail a lot

Lynn

I fail a lot. I think the overwhelming number of posts I’ve put on this site where I candidly admit that I haven’t reached some goal I’ve set for the day tells that story well.

Night before last, I failed again. I didn’t write 500 words or 2,000 words, and I didn’t end up staying awake for a night of writing.

Yesterday, I didn’t do any writing at all. I’m not sure why, because I intended to write, but it didn’t happen.

But here’s how I see failure: it’s a chance for a fresh start.

Today, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve given myself a fresh start.

⇒ I will write a minimum of 500 words (255 already written and 245 to go).

⇒ I’ll do everything I can to write at least 2,000 words.

However, I have also come to the conclusion that I do have to start taking my stated goals more seriously. I’m not doing myself any favors by constantly failing to meet them. This easy acceptance of failure has set a bad precedent and become a habit I didn’t want to cultivate.

On that note, I’m going back to my writing. I have a book I haven’t given up hope of finishing this month and I need a lot of words for that to happen.

Update: I wrote 565 words. Not as many as I wanted but beyond that minimum. That’s an okay result. Definitely happy to have stuck to my resolve to get that minimum.

It’s time for a late night writing spree :)

Lynn

First, does it count as a late night writing spree if it starts at 9:32 pm? That doesn’t feel like late night to me. However, this is likely to take a while, so I’m predicting a late night here.

I have a 500 word daily minimum to hit. I didn’t hit it yesterday or the day before and I don’t want to let that streak get out of hand.

My reasons for not writing that daily minimum of words is the usual. I just couldn’t get started yesterday at all.

I looked at my story before I wrote this, so I’ve gotten a head start, technically. In actuality, I deleted the last few paragraphs of chapter 9 and lost 97 words, starting me off in the hole. It doesn’t affect any of the opening of chapter 10, so that’s okay. I won’t be getting sucked into any revision because of that decision. In fact, I’m pretty sure that might be a sign that I needed to get rid of those paragraphs all along.

I seem to get stuck a lot and I’m not sure why or what that says about me or my writing process.

Now, it’s time to go write. I’ll be back with updates.

Update 8/25/18

And… that failed spectacularly. As soon as I settled down and stopped moving around much, I got sleepy. So sleepy that I finally just gave up, hibernated the computer, and went to bed.

So I accomplished almost nothing last night.

My ending word count on my book: 21,161.

Meaning I didn’t even write enough to cover the 97 words I deleted.

The “no timers” thing

Lynn

When I revisited getting rid of my timers, I thought the beginning of 2017 and the middle of 2017 was the last time I’d addressed the issue. But I was wrong. As I published my last post and checked through it as I usually do, I clicked the “corrective action“ tag.

It showed me a post I wrote in November 2017 called, appropriately, “Done with timers” that kind of shocked me. I had forgotten all about writing it.

First, no more timers. I’m not even talking about temporarily. I’m doing away with timers.

I know that didn’t work for me at the beginning of this year, but that was because I was using timers in conjunction with no schedule and no goals either. That was a mistake.

I know what I need as far as word counts: 500 words a day minimum, 3,000 words a day goal.

The goal is there to help make a particular dream I have a reality. I want to move. I want a new house. I want a pool. I need money to make that happen. :-)

I really don’t need to track anything else. Those are the numbers I need, each day. One is easily accomplished, the other is a stretch. Tracking my daily words is the only metric I need to know if I’m doing what I need to be doing (500 a day) or want to be doing (3,000 a day).

Swap out that 3,000 a day with my 2,000 words a day plan and this is pretty much what I’m doing now. I didn’t set a 500 a day minimum this time, but now that I’m reminded of that, I think I will.

I’m not going to forget and I’m not going to go back. I am done with timers. I mean done done done.

That 500 word minimum has the benefit of making yesterday’s word count an important success (I wrote 571 words, after all) and gives me something to push for tonight that’s more realistic than 2,000 words, because I’m not even going to pretend I’ll be able to go from the 53 words that I have to 2,000 words before I call it a night considering how late it is. But 500? Definitely possible.

And to top it off, this also means I have a 500 words a day streak going that I won’t want to break tonight. I mean, it’s only two days, but it’s two days in a row!

August word count update

Lynn

August word count to date = 7,258*

That’s a far cry from where I wanted to be by now when I started August. I’ve had a few good days, though. Specifically, the 16th and the 20th.

8/16 – 1,685
8/20 – 2,198

The rest of the days of this month have been mediocre at best.

Yesterday, I’d hoped for a repeat of my 2,000+ words day, but it didn’t happen. And today is looking even worse.

8/21 – 571 words
8/22 – 53 words (so far)

*Today is still in progress, although I’m not sure it’s going to get much better if I can’t find some way to convince myself to finish writing the scene I’m in the middle of. I just do not want to write the rest of this scene.

I’m trying very hard to decide if I want to delete the portion of the scene that I haven’t wanted to write today or to push on through. There’s also the fact that if I delete it and write, even though the words will be gone, I’ll at least be writing again. But it could lead me to end the day with in a negative position if I don’t write enough. However, the words aren’t doing me any good if they’re just getting in the way of my brain coming up with an alternative so getting rid of them could be my best way forward.

The best way to figure this all out is to start back through the chapter and just go with it, changing or deleting if I need to so the story can move forward again, but I’m just feeling very resistant to that and have been all day.

But… it’s time to decide and do something, because this book isn’t going to write itself and I’m trying to end the week with 14,000 words.

2198+571+53=2822
14000-2822=11178

(I really love how you can type math into OneNote and it solves it for you.) :D

I have 11,178 words still to write this week, and I should probably try to get a least a few (more) of them written tonight.

 

Today is the day I’ll write 2,000 words for the first time since November 2017

Lynn

Fiction words, that is. I’ve written plenty, many days, that probably put me well over 2,000 words in general.

What I haven’t done is write 2,000 words in a day since November 29, 2017 on any of my books or stories.

But today is looking like the day I break that streak. I’ve already written 658 words and it’s only 1:08 pm.

Which is good, because I’m ready to get the 2,000 words a day plan off the ground. I mean, I’ve been trying since I first posted about the plan, but it just hasn’t happened.

But today is the day. I can feel it. :)

On a final note, I haven’t changed my mind about the timers and timed writing. I haven’t recorded any timed sessions since I abandoned that process and I’m very happy to have done it. I feel like my progress hasn’t been hurt at all.

I occasionally jot down my progress like I did in the August 13, 2018 writing post, but that’s pretty much as far as I go, or ever plan to go.

The hardest part to accept was that although I felt as if the last time I tried this my output of words went down, in reality, it was going down regardless. Something had started that downward spiral already and it all culminated in me taking an extended break from writing. Returning to the use of timers didn’t save me, and the lack of timed writing and a schedule beforehand didn’t cause that downward slide.

It was hard to recognize that fact, because I’d been using the timers as a crutch for so long, but in the end, not even the urge to beat the timers could push me to write. I had to reconnect with my desire to write for the sake of writing before I could move foward. I’m still reconnecting, to be honest, but it’s there. I can feel it.

And there are definite benefits to writing without the timers, the number one being that I lose track of time when I’m writing so it feels a lot less like a chore to get through.

I’m the worst about not wanting to start things when I know how long they’ll take to finish. This way I don’t have to. Fooling myself into thinking I’ll finish sooner than I actually will is highly beneficial to me.

Anyway, it’s time to have lunch, then go back to writing. I’ll check in with my word count later, but anything else will go into its own post. :)

In-progress writing

Word count check-ins

  • 12:34 pm – 658 words
  • 5:57 pm – 1,161 words
  • 2:34 am – 2,198 words

Did it!

Trying again for my first 2,000 word day in a while

Lynn

Yesterday’s attempt at writing 2,000 words was a bust. Of all the legitimate things that got in the way, none of them were significant enough to physically stop me from sitting down and writing 2,000 words. My inability to focus came from my mental reaction to the day’s events.

A lot of little things just got in the way in my head and really made it difficult for me to concentrate on writing.

I don’t want that to happen again today.

I actually started off strong this morning. I’ve already written 357 words today.

But… it’s now apparent that the air conditioner might not be fixed, and that’s really got a hold on my brain, and my kid is leaving for college this weekend and is packing and interrupting me at regular intervals, and that’s distracting in a big way.

The fact remains that I still need to do my writing today. I’m behind on this book, and I need to finish it so I can publish it and move on to the next book. I also really need to publish a few books this year for the sake of my bank account. :)

Things are going well with the story and I think I can make a lot of progress today if I can just stay focused on writing the book. I also need to get that first 2,000 word day to start off that 2,000 words a day plan of mine.

I’ve used this little break to clear my head, I hope, and now I’m going back to writing. My book is sitting at 19,756 words right now. I’d like not to stop for lunch until I’m above 21,000 words.

Update: It’s 9:08 pm and I’m sitting at 890 words for the day.

I wanted to be at or above 2,000 words by now, but that hasn’t happened. Obviously. :) But! The air conditioner is working again (repairman came) and that worry is gone and I’m finally feeling able to concentrate again.

Since I don’t want to end tonight without reaching 2,000 words, I’m here at the computer to write another 1,110 words.

Update: 1,506 words. Man, this is getting hard. I’m sooooo sleepy. It’s 12:01 and I have 494 words to go. I don’t know if I’m going to make it.

Update: I settled for 1,685 words. I was too sleepy to continue. This morning, looking at that, it’s easy to say I should have kept going, but last night? There was just no way.

On the bright side, that number of words is above the lower limit I’d set for myself in some calculations I did when I decided to write 2,000 words a day. I ended up settling on 2,000, which is between the two values.

50,000 75,000
1,644 2,466

Some things to keep in mind about using WordPress for your author site

Lynn

After reading another post in a forum where someone has had a WordPress site hacked, I felt compelled to write this post.

Lots of authors let others set up websites for them and have no clue how they work, and the designer/developer decides to use WordPress to build the site because WordPress makes it easy for inexperienced website owners (authors) to post content and it’s free software.

But WordPress is not that easy to run for an inexperienced user, nor is it a set-it and forget-it solution, and that’s often totally forgotten.

I have a lot of WordPress-based websites and there are some key factors to keeping them safe you need to understand before you let anyone set up a site for you using WordPress.

  1. You’ve got to keep the thing updated. If the person setting up the site isn’t going to be doing that for you, you have to learn how to do this. It’s super important. If you don’t, you’re going to get hacked. Just no way around that.
  2. You need to be able to make backups of the WordPress site and media files on the server and the database that your WordPress site stores your content in. If the person maintaining your site doesn’t do this, you need to do it. Just like with your books, you need backups. Things can happen to databases and files can get corrupted or changed and need to be replaced. You need to be able to make these backups.
  3. You have to stay away from old plug-ins, or any plug-in that isn’t well-maintained. The best bet is to always only use plug-ins you absolutely need and make sure they have a reputation for being safe. There are plug-ins out there that are just back doors for hackers. You have to be careful with plug-ins.
  4. Highly customized and complicated themes are not good choices when the site is being run by an inexperienced WordPress user. WordPress code changes, security flaws get exploited, and depending on a designer/dev for updates and fixes can get really expensive. It’s safest to stick with customized child themes based on common, well-maintained themes, such as the core themes that come with WordPress.
  5. Using the default “admin” username is a big no-no and yet lots of designers/devs still set WordPress up with “admin” as the main user. Don’t let them!
  6. You’ll need to use a long (and I mean really long) password for your username. Brute force attacks are an issue with WordPress so you need a long password.

I’m sure there are even more things to keep in mind if you’re letting someone set up a WordPress site for you, but these are the biggies that come to mind.

If you’re not comfortable with web stuff, using WordPress is not going to be a safe option for your website unless you have a designer/developer you can rely on and you’re not afraid to spend some money making sure things stay updated and safe.

WordPress is great. I love it. But I also know my way around a database, can do some light php coding, and have been building and running websites since 2001. There are definitely costs associated with WordPress-based websites, including real money and time. It’s a trade off. You learn to do a lot of things yourself and save the money, or you save the time and pay.

Anyway, if you ended up here because you’re thinking about letting someone set up a WordPress site for you, I hope this helps you make your decision with your eyes open.

:-)

I want to make today my first 2,000 word day since last year

Lynn

Ouch. I knew it had been a while since I actually wrote 2,000 words in one day, but it was all the way back into last year on November 29, 2017. I wrote 2,291 words that day.

Today I just want to write 2,000 words. I need to write more, but I really just want to get over that 2,000 words hump so I can officially say I’ve started working on my 2,000 words a day plan.

I can do this!

10:16 am – I had a repairman in for some work on my air conditioner, but he’s gone now and I’m going to start writing now, sans timer and timed sessions, sans schedule, and sans resistance. ;-)

I’d like to reach 500–1,000 words by noon. Let’s see if I can make that happen.

7:30 pm update: Things aren’t going well. I’ve written exactly 19 words so far.

Ending total: 114 words.

Ouch.

August 14, 2018 writing post

Lynn

The only part of my list of want-to-dos I accomplished yesterday was to write something for my new book and work on my paperback for my last release. I’m not going to dwell on the failures though. I’m coming at today with the attitude of a fresh start and a new commitment to my daily word count quota.

That quota is 2,000 words. (Of course.)

I’m writing this new book much too slowly and I need to finish it sooner rather than later if I don’t want to go broke, so I’m going to push for more than that.

I’m just saying. Reality is about to smack me in the face if I don’t start writing more, very soon. My last 12 months word count (September to August) is 78,051 words. That doesn’t sound like the end of the world but add to that my last published book came out late last year. Money is an issue.

Dreams will buoy you through tough times, but you don’t want to set your sail in an ocean of them.

The life of a writer isn’t one of steady paychecks and Castle-esque wealth. If that’s what you’re hoping for, well, keep hoping, but plan for something quite different. Those plans might be the only thing keeping your fridge full.

On that note, I’m off here to go write some fiction. Time is short and I have a book to write.

Update: the day was a bit of a fail (okay, a lot of a fail). I had air conditioner troubles, and so many interruptions, but mostly, I just failed to start the writing. I did get 177 words, but it was on one of my book projects I’m not even sure when I’m going to get around to writing. I have so many other projects to finish first.

August 13, 2018 writing post

Lynn

Today’s to-dos

Touch all of my main stories, but focus on #1 (the book I want to finish first).

It’s fun for me to write on multiple stories. I also usually end up with more words at the end of the day than I would otherwise.

Then, work on my last published book’s paperback today. I’ll do it in LibreOffice so I can take advantage of the more robust widows and orphans and hyphenation settings.

Once it is done (focus on finishing!) I can try it in Word 2016 if I feel I must. Don’t even bother with Word 2007, the hyphenation is horrible.

Word produces really decent print books for me. I think LibreOffice Writer will probably do just as well, and will definitely be easier on me with the extra hyphenation options and finer control over widows and orphans. I don’t mind first lines of new paragraphs ending a page (orphans); it’s the last lines of a paragraph beginning a new page that I try hardest to eliminate (widows).

Read back through ALL of today’s writing, looking for stuff to fix so I can safely ignore it all tomorrow and just start writing from wherever I left off (and not feel like I’m leaving things undone).

In-progress Finished writing

Word count check-ins

Time Words (book) Words (today)
11:56 am 19,070 words 84 words
12:35 pm 19,173 words 187 words
11:01 pm 19,285 words 299 words

That’s it! I’ll update my word counts as the day goes on but anything more than that will probably end up in its own post. :D

August changes

Lynn

A few things have changed since my last writing post.

I’ve decided:

To ditch timers and timed writing for good.

It feels weird to sit down and write without the timer. I still look for it in the corner of my screen as I type. I still look for the column on my spreadsheet and feel a little startled when I realize it doesn’t matter how fast or slow I wrote those 187 words.

To erase my record of my timed writing and words per hour calculations.

I did make a backup of the original file with those numbers because I couldn’t not do that.

To stick to word count quotas.

To STICK to word count quotas, for real. I do need some type of structure to keep me working.

Structure is useful for me.

But going back and forth between time / word counts / WPH anxiety isn’t useful to me at all.

I can’t control my daily word counts as easily I can control my time spent writing but I never (seriously, never) seem to reach the time quotas I set for myself either.

Since word count quotas are so much more meaningful to my income, they win. :-)

The day after I made this decision, I wrote more words with less effort than I’ve written in a long time. I reached 671 words for the day and hardly felt like I’d done any writing at all. It felt great.

Then stuff happened, delays and distractions, and I didn’t write very much for the next two days. Now we’ve come to today, and the writing is again going easily and I hardly feel like I’ve done anything at all. I’m already up to 187 words for the day.

Those timers really did make writing feel too much like hard work. Getting that out of my system might take a while, but I’m sure it’s the right path forward for me. I need to like writing or I won’t do it, but lately, I just hadn’t liked it very much at all. That changed so quickly after making the decision to ditch the time keeping and WPH calculations that I really feel it was hindering my enjoyment of writing and interfering with my ability to keep going with this for the long-term.

The hours and WPH are just demoralizing anyway most of the time. Average words per day is the only number that really matters in the long run.

It’s just a renewed focus on actually getting the word counts and not wasting time worrying over anything else to do with productivity.

To stop trying to make my book perfect.

I know better than this. But I’ve fallen into some bad habits this year and my inner perfectionist is making life difficult again.

To keep using OneNote.

I have decided I’m just not leaving OneNote for certain types of notes until or unless I have to. I need software for note-taking or I never would have started using Evernote, way back when, even before I migrated to OneNote several years ago.

I did move the rest of my notebooks to OneDrive so I can keep using OneNote the way I like once my Office 365 subscription expires in September. And, it’s a little hard to admit, but my notebooks are actually a lot more useful since I moved them.

The local notebook issue was more a principle thing than a practical issue for me. I decided to bend on this one.

It’s time for me to get back to writing fiction now. I have a quota today and I’d like to see how close I end up to it. That 2,000 words a day plan is still something I’ve got in my sights.

The new Gmail interface makes me miss Yahoo

Lynn

I don’t know who it is that Google’s designing for, but the new Gmail (and Contacts) site as viewed on my computer screen reminds me of a large print book. For babies. Maybe that’s who they’re designing for! I don’t know. But the colors are blindingly bright and the white space is so excessive that it makes me miss Yahoo (which I pretty much hated).

First it was Google+, then Calendar, and now Gmail. I’m seriously ready to abandon them all. Actually, I did abandon Google+. I also avoid visiting the Google Calendar website unless I have to now, after using it for my homepage for years. Trust me when I say it is not my homepage any longer. I stick with my phone’s Google Calendar app, because at least they did that right.

Anyway, I’m just venting. I’m so frustrated by all the design trends that are ruining website usability for actual computer users. I realize mobile is huge these days (I myself spend a lot of time online on my various devices!), but there’s just no need for designers to ruin the screen versions of websites to make a mobile site work well.

Sigh.

08-07-2018 writing

Lynn

Writing today ~ I’m planning 2 x 53 minutes before noon.

Wish me luck. I want to do more writing than editing but I do still need to get through a troublesome chapter 6 during this time block.

I’ve decided 100% that I need to adhere to some kind of schedule even while trying to write as much as possible. I might, in fact, need a schedule more than ever for that kind of writing because it’s easy to sit at the computer all day and think I’ll have plenty of time to get started.

But getting started is the hard part and I don’t do it well. :)

Today the schedule is this:

10 to 12
1 to 3
4 to 6
7 to 9

I’m trying to write as much as possible right now because I really needed/wanted to get this book out last month and didn’t and this month is already zipping away. It’s the 7th for goodness sakes.

And if that “goodness sakes” bothers you, just think of it as a regional thing. No one actually says “for goodness’ sake” around here, even if that’s what they really mean.

July 2018 progress

Lynn

I’ve had another dry spell with the writing but I’m trying to get things moving again. It all started with the space bar failure and snowballed from there. I had several things happen around that time that that kept interfering with my daily routine and distracted me from writing.

I relocated the stray cat and her three litters of kittens/cats to a cozy barn where they can live in peace and so can I. I’ve had to heal from that burn on my wrist that might not leave a scar after all. I don’t know. I seem to be healing well, just have some weird sensation around the edges of the new skin that twinges.

But all in all, several things have really taken my focus off writing and it’s taken me this long to get going again.

So in the end, I didn’t do nearly as well in July as I’d hoped to do.

Words written in July: 6,478.

That’s definitely a slowdown from June. Still, it’s better than nothing, and I’m trying to do better in August. I’m also trying to finish this next book of mine. Wish me luck.

Office 365 issues, OneNote, and my local notebooks

Lynn

So… I mentioned canceling Office 365 and uninstalling? Turns out it wasn’t as easy as that. I still use OneNote, so I reinstalled it after uninstalling Office 365.

OneNote is supposed to be a freebie these days, although who knows for how long, but right off it started giving me little error-like messages about my local notebooks and how I needed an Office 365 subscription to keep using them. Most of my notebooks are local notebooks, meaning they’re stored on my computer’s hard drive instead of on OneDrive.

These local notebooks and the free version of OneNote are pretty much incompatible. It was allowing me to use them, but only when I twisted its arm. In trying to diagnose what might be going on, because at that point I didn’t know, I chose to “switch” my license. I didn’t realize that meant that the entire Office 365 suite would reinstall itself on my computer in the background, but that’s exactly what happened.

The next day, I clicked on one of my spreadsheet files and Excel 2016 opened. At which point I said: “What the hell?”

I did a little research but didn’t turn up anything to explain why it had reinstalled itself so I uninstalled Office 365 again.

Then I closed one of my OneNote notebooks—a local one. Then I changed my mind and tried to reopen it. The freebie version of OneNote absolutely would not let me reopen the notebook. The error-like message was back, telling me I needed to sign up to Office 365 to use that notebook. It was the same message as before, only before, I could close it and still access my local notebooks. But I absolutely could not reopen a local notebook, at which point I realized it wasn’t a glitch at all but an actual limitation of the freebie version of OneNote. Local notebooks aren’t supported.

At that point, I thought about the licensing issue and what it might have meant and how I might be stuck with Office 365 if I wanted OneNote to work the way it had worked before.

So I “switched” my license for OneNote again, assuming I would wake up to the entire Office 365 suite on my computer again, but at least I’d have the ability to open my local OneNote notebook.

That happened, and I successfully reopened my closed (local) notebook.

So yay for that?

I’m still going to allow my subscription to expire, and I’ve left the recurring billing turned off. What I’m hoping will happen is that my OneNote install will continue to work normally even after the other programs deactivate themselves. I’m not at all confident that this is what will happen, but that is my hope.

There are three reasons why I don’t want to stop using OneNote for my notes.

  1. I can paste bits from my spreadsheets into a note and have it retain formatting as a table with no extra work at all. Everything just works. I don’t want to embed the spreadsheet because I delete the bits that I’m pasting. That’d be useless. I just want it for reference. That’s all.
  2. All my notes are consolidated in one location and accessible from one file (essentially).
  3. I can search through all my notes easily at one time.

I debated the issue with myself but ultimately I decided to move my local notebooks to OneDrive so I can keep using OneNote for most of them, with the exception of my journal. I exported that to a Word .docx, imported it to Writer and saved a copy as an .odt file.

I’ve already started using it for my journal. There are some definite benefits to it being an .odt file and I’m happy that I did it.

There’s also one drawback: I can paste bits from my spreadsheets into LibreOffice Writer, but I have to paste it in as HTML formatted text and then manually apply table styling to it so that it looks like a table. I tested it a few times and I can imagine getting really good at it, but it’s not instantaneous like it is in OneNote.

So that my notes continue to look the same, I added a few styles that are easy to apply.

  • Note Title
  • Note Meta
  • Note Paragraph
  • Note Indent
  • Note List

That seems to be all I need for most of my entries. But I like how neat it all looks. And now I have text statistics. My journal for 2015–2018-to-date is just over 93,000 words. That makes me sad. I just barely managed 126,000 words of fiction last year!

I have to say, it definitely makes me feel like I’m falling down on the job.

But the beauty of this is that if I get tired of one font (it happens!) or a particular layout style, I can easily change it for my whole journal with a simple style edit. :-) Doing that in OneNote is pretty much impossible without some kind of weird hack, because changing the note font even in options doesn’t apply to old notes.

I canceled my Office 365 subscription

Lynn

I finally ditched Office 365. Not for LibreOffice, which I’ll probably end up using in the long run, but for Office 2007. I never could get used to writing in Word 2016 and I absolutely hated Excel 2016 to the point that I only ever used it when it accidentally opened a file.

I was happy to use the 1 TB of space OneDrive gave me with my subscription, but after getting a look at my account history the other day and seeing in black and white that I’d already paid $330+ for access to software I was barely using (only 38 GB of OneDrive space actually), I just did not see the sense in continuing to pay for the subscription. The personal plan is $69 a year plus tax, but I decided that wasn’t really any better. Subscription plans for software just don’t make a lot of sense for users like me.

So I revisited LibreOffice just to see what I would be giving up if the Office 365 uninstall screwed up my Office 2007 install (it’s been known to happen) and realized that I would be perfectly happy with LibreOffice for what I do.

My spreadsheets aren’t so complex that they didn’t open and work in Calc, and my documents all look fine in Writer. I might have to refresh myself with some things, because the last time I was consistently using something other than Word and Excel, I was using OpenOffice. I’ve played around with LibreOffice Writer, but I haven’t used it on a day-to-day basis.

First thing I did was change the background of Writer to Word’s background blue. That’d be #9DBDE6.

Talk about feeling more at home…

The good news is that the uninstall of Office 365 did not mess up my Office 2007 install. When I opened Word for the first time after the fact, I got an install/setup window that did make me wonder, but Office did a few things, and then I was back to work in Word 2007 within a few minutes.

I like LibreOffice Writer. I’ll probably make the switch for any new books I start, but finish in Word the books I’ve already started, just so I don’t have to mess with styles. There does appear to be a bit of a difference in how those work and I don’t want to get distracted.

So all is good. I can take my time transitioning to LibreOffice Writer and keep working on my current book just the way I’ve always worked on it, in Word 2007.