People don’t realize how much Jane is involved in the writing of these books. In this case she dropped her own writing, parked herself in a chair, and 48 hours later, including taking the book to bed, she handed me a brilliantly-done critique, with line notes and suggestions…now and again I like her wording better than mine. So when I dedicate a book to Jane it’s often because she’s got paragraphs in it. 😉
I handed her a new version 24 hours later, and 24 hours after that she handed me another compare file WITH a copy of the original with the suggestions already embedded, which took some mental algebra to get properly compared with MY original text…and 24 hours after that—I have produced a final from the combination of her notes and that text. NOW she’s in there trying to clean up the kitchen disaster area after my marathon re-editing which started early this morning. We’re having pizza tonight and starting another stew pot tomorrow if I don’t intervene with my brilliant notion of crescent-roll-based pastry shells for a chicken pot pie. We’ll see what I feel like doing. I might get inventive.
But bless her, I’ll have a clean kitchen to do it. I hear the bangs and thumps. And all this while Jane is working on her own story.
Did I mention I just fired the finalfinal back to her because she said she wants to read it. And I realize now that I’ve sent it to NYC that I haven’t run the check for certain words I wanted to run before I sent it—sometimes our modern age just moves too fast for its own good… SO there may yet be a finalfinalfinal before Betsy gets to edit it.
I’m now happy with it, however. We get inventive on file names: trackerv1jsf, trackercjc, trackercjccomp, tracker2jsf, tracker2cjc, trackercompnov3, trackerfinalcjc, trackerfinaljsc, trackerfinalfinalnov5…
And this isn’t saying there won’t be more. This is the only mode in which I really appreciate Windows over DOS—when I can call up two files side by side, and run the red-letter version of the edit past the original in the same screen.
Thank goodness also for hyperclean focus on the glasses. I have one pair set so I can read 8pt type. And that really matters when I’m trying to get 2 whole pages on at once. Since I work only with a laptop in an undersized armchair, occasionally with kitty help, this miniaturization helps.
I’m now started on the next book, the title of which I know but have not yet announced (no, I won’t, not yet!), and Jane’s going to follow up on that one, too, so we can make sure the data matches from book to book.
I loved the old Rogue direction keys. You used your right hand one left from the touch-typing home–easy to find by touch. H is to the left, so it’s left; L is to the right, so it’s right. J has a low hook, so it’s down; K has a high arm, so it’s up. You can touch type directions with no awkward hand positions and hit all four cardinal directions instantly. Diagonals were relative to H, the home key of the setup.
Y UH J K L
B N
It goes deeper than that! That’s based on the ASCII control codes:
8 (backspace, BS, \b, ^H), used either to erase the last character printed or to overprint it.
9 (horizontal tab, HT, \t, ^I), moves the printing position some spaces to the right.
10 (line feed, LF, \n, ^J), used as the end of line marker in most UNIX systems and variants.
11 (vertical tab, VT, \v, ^K), vertical tabulation.
PS: Weird: every once in a while, CJ, I’m seeing your avatar on the “Howdy bar” instead of my own. Anyone else see this?
Yes, when she has the last post in the thread.
Bizarre. My avatar process is a bit different than the standard one membership uses…sounds to me like one of those things we just hope for a wordpress fix to solve.
I am now filling a spray bottle with water in an attempt to dissuade the two scurrilous felines who will not stop waltzing across my keyboard. I’m lucky they haven’t seriously screwed up the comp, apps, or files, but, argue! Can’t stand the aggravation. Drastic steps are in order. (Hmm, must use sprayer so as not to douse anything but the felines, though.) Scoundrels! Churlish knaves! Don’t tell me they don’t know what they’re doing, either, the little…grrr….
Just set up a new Mac Mini computer and large but non-Mac screen today in my home office and am trying to figure out how to “migrate” stuff from my IPad (which I have been using almost exclusively for a year or so) and my old, old (8-10nyears probably) Mac book laptop. Stuff from my IPad is technically stored on Apple’s “ICloud” but some things migrated on their own to the new computer and some need to be mysteriously “downloaded” but by a series of so far, random-feeling key stabs. I managed to download, after much random poking and clicking, my current novel draft and the full text of my ur-novel, The Marginal Way. This makes me feel much relieved.
Now if I can figure out how to get the many photos off my IPad, I will feel even better… at least until I go to moving the many files, including PhD thesis chapters, off my old laptop.
An added bonus of setting up the new computer: it forced me to clean my clutter-piled office desk. Good thing I am an archaeologist by academic training or I might not have recognized some of the papers I unearthed. I also threw away dozens of old, 4″ hard disks of old files, etc. from the 90’s. I don’t think I could open them ever again. Certainly the computers are mostly gone from the house and the programs completely outdated. Most if not all of the material is on… the laptop, so I must get those files transferred!
Raesean, re the photos: Assuming you want to store them on your mini, connect the iPad to the mini via the USB cable that came with it, then using Apple’s “Image Capture” app (it’s in your Applications folder), you can import the photos directly to any folder you specify on your new Mini. Apple’s instructions are here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH17894
You could also import them into iPhoto (good if you regularly use iPhoto for your pix-I personally don’t). Once the iPad is plugged in, open iPhoto, and the process is pretty automatic.
BTW, I recommend backing up the iPad to the Mini, using USB and iTunes-I know it’s old-fashioned, but that way you get a complete iPad backup (including system files) stored on the Mini. iCloud backups are just data, not the system.
Re all your data files, if your old laptop is running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) or newer, you can use Apple’s Migration Assistant, which will chung through the stuff you select to have transferred automatically, and duplicate the file/folder structure of your old machine. Directions are here: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH17894
If instead you’re copying by hand, do connect both machines to the network via Ethernet if you have that option-much faster than wi-fi.
If you have particular questions about migrating to a new Mac (and coordinating with your iPad) I’d be glad to answer if I can.
Levanah10, thanks for the advice… esp. on directly migrating my photos from the IPad to the new Mac Mini! I never think of the IPad as being able to be physically connected to another computer but will go dig out its USB cable that must be somewhere (or else I’ll borrow it from a friend who uses all sorts of Macs). I quite agree about backing stuff up on a hard drive… it’s one of the reasons I wanted to get a new computer even though the IPad works astounding well for most day to day stuff.
I don’t use IPhoto particularly, which is why I think I could only find 11 recent photos automatically migrated through it to the Mini… ones I sent myself on my (Android, oddly enough) cell phone.
I should be able to link the old laptop to the new Mini also, although I suspect I am not using SnowLeopard on it. I’ll check.
Many, many thanks! CJ has brought together a wise, knowledgeable and nice community here!
When you connect the iPad to your new Mac Mini, you’ll be able to get to most things through iTunes or iCloud, or directly from the new Mac’s desktop.
I use (and would recommend) NeoOffice from the Mac’s App Store for your new Mac, if you don’t already use it.
If you need a text editor that can handle HTML, CSS, and source code, the venerable and actively maintained BBEdit by Bare Bones Software is also available from the Mac App Store these days.
A USB flash drive or an external hard drive are available fairly cheaply now and will really help with backups and during the migration.
You’re welcome to ask here (or email) 🙂 if you have questions.
BCS: Plug in the iPad & transfer stuff to/from the Mac desktop *directly*? Seriously, how?? Is this some new feature with Yosemite? I’ve always had to use 3rd party software get files (except for audio and pix) off my phone and on to my desktop. But I could easily be behind the times.
I may be mistaken. It’s been a while since I last tried a direct transfer too, but it was formerly possible on Windows, and I *think* it’s also doable from the Mac. I’ll check and report back, next time I plug in my iPad and backup/transfer things. As I recall, you can get to the content, but it’s not so obvious.
You *can* definitely transfer within iTunes, to/from individual apps. Third-party apps like Kindle and Audible, one transfers files to/from the app’s storage space by selecting the iPad, then the app, then the files to transfer. (However, both Kindle and Audible now make this easier by storing in Amazon’s own cloud system; while, for example, ebooks from third-parties such as Closed-Circle or one’s own files, may be transferred directly, as they are not part of Amazon’s system.) Apple’s apps (Pages, etc.) now store files in Apple’s, er, iCloud or iDrive, whichever they are now calling it. Lo, the meandering march of technology….
This stuff ain’t fer sissies, is it? 😀
One would think Apple and Android alike would make this stuff easier by now.
(Grumble: I wish NeoOffice, LibreOffice, OpenOffice made it easier to specify and save sets of custom swatches for document colors. And I wish they’d group fonts by font-family and allow italics or software slant, but noooo, programs no longer seem to do such things.) (Pardon, I’m being unnecessarily grouchy.)
Thursday it’s said Hachette & Amazon have settled their dispute, but none of the news articles about it seem to address authors’ dispute with Amazon, or is that part of this settlement?