Old People Writing for Teens, IV

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Sage

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Cheering you all on!
In happier news, I was on my blog where it informs me that there is only NINE days to my book release. Single digits, guys!
 

Smiley0501

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:partyguy:Yay for 9 days until book release, Sage!

I'm sorry to hear about your glitches. I think there's no harm in asking to resubmit.
 

Aslera

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I disappeared again into the world of edits and writing a sequel. Whooooooa brain on fire. I lost 10,000 words due to my own stupidity (saved old version over a new version with no backup of the new version) and threw a fit for a few days.
Finished a sequel to my YA that I wrote last weekend (Passover/Easter weekend). It's about 58k right now, but probably needs 2k slashed and 5k added in different areas. I did a cursory edit this morning but I just finished it this AM too so I really need to take a step back from it.

Yay for single digits, Sage, and I totally feel you on the computer glitches :( Let us know how that goes.
 

Sage

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All right, message sent to SC. We'll see how they respond. I told them that I understood if I couldn't resubmit, but would they please forgive the formatting problems if that's the case.
 

Sage

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lost 10,000 words due to my own stupidity (saved old version over a new version with no backup of the new version) and threw a fit for a few days.
OMG, I would pretty much die if this happened.

Yay for sequel though! I'm kinda right there, wanting to write a sequel for TM (instead of finishing editing it)
 

Aslera

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Trust me, there was a fairly epic hysterical meltdown that involved me calling my boss at 8am on a Saturday morning and getting his key to go see if there was a temp file on my work computer where I had last written (obviously I made up an excuse for needing to get back into the building). It was gone and I definitely didn't quite hit the magic of the words as well the second time around.

People were like "oh that sucks but it'll be better" and I was like you don't understand. This feels like I just lost a limb.

Gah. BACK UP ALL THE TIME, PEOPLE. EVERYWHERE.
 

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Aslera, I've done something similar, though not to that magnitude, and am now paranoid about backing up. Flash drive. Email. Laptop. And I'm still not comfortable. I have these horrific nightmares of everything dying at once, haha.
 

Sage

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I've lost a measely little chapter before. It was like, I knew that it was better last time, and the whole time I was was trying so hard to recapture what I had written the first time around (when I was probably in the zone and not comparing it to an inaccessible set of words and doubting every new one I put down). Of course, now I have no clue what the novel was, much less being able to recognize what chapter I rewrote. But it is so frustrating and heartbreaking when it happens.
 

Sage

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Oh, would you guys like to hear a horror story about a novel being destroyed? It's not mine, but it will make you back up everything and save every draft you write.
 

Stiger05

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I don't know Sage, just the thought of that makes me want to print my ms right now and squirrel hard copies away in different places.
 

amlptj

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I've lost an entire finished book before when i got my new computer. It didnt transfer over yet i didnt know that and cleared my old computer to give it to my mom. I searched the deepest darkest corners of my old computers hard drive but it was gone. So i was in the process of re-writing it.
 

Sage

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I've lost an entire finished book before when i got my new computer. It didnt transfer over yet i didnt know that and cleared my old computer to give it to my mom. I searched the deepest darkest corners of my old computers hard drive but it was gone. So i was in the process of re-writing it.
Oh, man, that's awful!

My horror story happened to my friend, who we'll call E. She and her crit group were very close (they went on trips to foreign countries together). One of the critters had given E a copy of her manuscript, printed out, to read at her leisure. E was going into Scriptfrenzy, so she was like, "I'm so excited to read it in May," but the friend was a little pushy, so she started reading it in the mornings while she got ready for work. Meanwhile the friend went to a writers' workshop and the critiques she got there convinced her to make major changes to her novel. She did not save a copy of the original version.

E was getting ready and drinking tea and reading the ms. when her cat jumped on the table and spilled the tea all over the ms. E was late for work, so she threw the ms in her tub covered with towels to soak up the tea. When she got back from work, it was a solid brick of paper. She threw it away and tried to figure out how to tell her friend.

The next day her friend calls and says, "I need it back!" She decided she wanted the original version after all and the only copy of the original was supposedly in E's hands. So E explains what happened, and the friend did not believe her. Now, it's understandable for someone to be upset when something like this happens, and even to blame the other person for ruining the only copy of that version of your book, even if the blame is unjustified. However, she told everyone in the crit group that E had stolen the book and was going to sell it herself, and everyone believed her (only recently have some of them started to go, "Wait, that doesn't really make sense for her..."). And since E had thrown away the block of paper that had been the ms, she didn't have any proof that her side of the story had happened. It's this total "Nevada Day" story that you wouldn't believe if it was fiction.
 

Netz

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I hope SC are accommodating for you, Sage. :Hug2:

I ditto what others have said - back up your files!! I'd planned to do some major computer housekeeping a few years ago, but my computer suddenly died on me without warning before I had chance. I had some stuff saved to disc (yeah, it was a while ago, lol), but a lot of the more recent stuff hadn't been saved elsewhere. I was devastated at the time. Thankfully, my brother was able to rescue the hard disc drive so everything was recovered but, boy, did I learn my lesson. Nowadays I'm quite paranoid about saving stuff (I think I have 3 USB sticks, as well as emailing stuff to myself and putting it on Google Docs).
 

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Wow, Sage. That's terrible! Of course it also makes no sense they would believe she was trying to sell the ms herself, that's crazy. That's also why I save each version as a new document, so if decide I like an older version better, it's still there. I saved over something once then didn't like it and oops, couldn't go back.

Sometimes I miss typewriters. Ha!
 

Sage

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My submission problem is taken care of, yay! The editor seems very understanding.
 

Stiger05

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Yay!! :hooray: Congrats Sage! And good luck!

I'm polishing mine up as we speak, so fingers crossed for both of us!
 

amlptj

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FINGERS CROSSED for you guys

I couldn't do it this year, mine was proffread completely yet
 

Dorothy

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Good luck with the resubmission, Sage! And good luck with your book launch!

(By the way, you can pitch my publisher on their FB page. I know they do have one MG superhero book, but I don't know if they have a YA yet. Give it a try. And good luck!)
 

JKRowley

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I save my novels in the cloud. Dropbox is free up to a certain point, and word documents don't take up much room.
 
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