Losing It All

Many writers have long professed a love of writing in the morning. Sitting down in the wee hours of the dawn with nothing but a coffee and some thoughts. Oh, and a computer. For some, it takes a lot to get motivated to become early writers. Not me. Once I'm out of bed, I'm ready to go. It's the getting out of bed part that's tough. I mean, emotionally tough. Sometimes, I actually get a bit weepy when the alarm goes off, but as soon as my feet hit the cold floor, the anxiety goes away.

Most people write in the morning because it's typically a time of uninterrupted bliss. I have four children so morning writing time is truly a treat whenever I can get it. But since I usually take the bus to the office, I crack open the laptop on the back row and tap away. Luckily, my college actor training gives me the ability to block out all the commotion found on a city bus.

Wednesday, I spent the entire ride home writing some great material. I mean this was stuff that was really getting me choked up. I had just saved it and written a few more lines when the battery went dead and the laptop shut off. Deep in the throes of writing, I wasn't keeping track of the power meter, so the sudden loss of power wasn't expected. But I had definitely saved my work and had written just a few more lines before the portable blackout.

Since I was working on a new series of essays, I wasn't using my usual favorite writing tool, Celtx. Instead, I was writing in OpenOffice Writer. I'm a huge fan of open source software and typically opt for it if it's designed well and does what I need. And since OpenOffice does practically everything Microsoft Word does, it seemed like a natural choice.

Now, with all its fantastical features, OpenOffice has this hemorrhoid of a feature called Document Recovery. What's supposed to happen in the event of an in-writing meltdown is this: When you power back up and start OpenOffice, it asks you if you want it to try and recover the data you lost. Then it looks through some kind of temp file and adds it into the most recently saved version. What should have happened is that it should have recovered the few lines I didn't get a chance to save as well as the parts that I did save.

What I got instead was nothing. Nada. Zipperooni. It gave me the same material I started with the day before. It was as though Wednesday's bit of literary brilliance never existed.

I actually felt sick to my stomach. I've tried to sum up the emotional state this put me in and the best I can come up with is this: It was like saving up $5,000 to buy a white rug, getting it home, and having the dog take a runny dump all over it.

I know that sounds pretty bad, but here's the worst part. When I opened the laptop to try to rewrite it, I discovered that I was still so upset that I couldn't even look at the part I left off with two days before.

I'm sure you've had something similar happen to your own writing and if you haven't, you certainly will one day. And it will happen to the best bit of writing you'll do. And you'll be pissed. And you'll get the same lump in your stomach. And you won't feel like working on it again because you know that the stuff you lost was infinitely better than anything you could ever come up with again.

But instead of giving up and walking away from it, try taking a day off from it. Give the ideas you had and lost a chance to work themselves up again and come back. For me, the music I was listening to while writing brought it all back to me. For you, it may be something else. The place you were in. The time of day you were writing before. If you were that upset about losing your work, then you know it's worth coming back to.

And if you manage to take away any lesson from my misfortune, let it be to always check your battery.

Baby Got Backup

Every writer with an overabundance of mushy grey stuff in their head knows that the words they write are golden. Even the stuff that will eventually get the red pen is worth saving, because in the end, the mountain of success you're standing on is actually a big steaming pile of mistakes.

Since most writers have now forgone pen and paper for a screen and a keyboard, having a reliable file backup system is not only crucial, it's job security. Of course, you could just dump your docs onto an external drive every couple of days, but when you need to go back to find a passage you deleted three versions ago, you're stuck.

That's why a version control system is such a great idea for writers. Typically, version control systems have been the mainstay of software programmers because being able to track the modifications among many versions of a file makes collaborative development infinitely less stressful. But writers need a similar system. That scene you axed last week could find new life if it were simply moved to a different part of the story. But since you've deleted it, it's gone. And after a week's worth of banging out page after page, there's no way you could recreate it.

Luckily, Rachel Greenham has laid out a great file management tutorial for writers of any type and genre. It uses an open-source system called Subversion that tracks complete information about every version of a file, from the modification date to any changes from a previous version. You can even add comments to the version record, in case you want to tag it with an idea without having to write it in the actual file.

The tutorial is primarily written for Mac users, however similar solutions are available for you Windows users as well. Also, bear in mind that setting up this system requires you to let your geek flag fly, but hey...you're a writer. I'm sure you can figure it out!

Leopard Attack and TV Pilots

My Thanksgiving present arrived today. (I know...who the hell gets presents at Thanksgiving anyway?) My copy of OSX 10.5 (A.K.A. Leopard) landed on my desk so, like any other pathetic Mac-head, I'm installing it right away.

So far, everything seems to be chugging along happily as I write this from a nearby Windows PC. I've taken great care to back up everything, especially my photos and screenplays, the latter of which are also saved in my Gmail account.

On the screenwriting front, everything is going well. I'm set to work on a third round of rewrites over the holiday weekend. This should be the final big rewrite, with a spit and polish round to follow this one. After that, if all looks solid, I'll pass it around to some people for comments and any notes they feel like giving.

Then it's back to work on the BBC TV pilot. My plan is to simply write the pilot and synopses of some following episodes, just to give the reader an idea of the intended story direction.

That having been said, my question is this: What's the proper procedure for setting up a new TV drama pilot? Just the first episode? Should I write more full episodes? Should I include synopses?

If you've done a TV pilot, how'd the process go for you?

@#$%ing Final Draft

This script has some curse words. A lot of curse words. One of the supporting characters is a punk, so he's gonna curse a bit. A group of punks trash a pizza shop, so you know they're gonna drop the f-bomb numerous times.

So far, the script is coming along great. In fact, I'm working on the final scene right now. But I had no idea that I'd have to corrupt someone in the process.

I'm talking about my copy of Final Draft. Out of the box, it doesn't know any dirty words. You have to teach it all the nastiness - it's kinda like hanging out in the junior high boy's bathroom, telling all the younger kids what the unmentionable words mean.

I wish the good folks at Final Draft would create some kind of dirty-word add-on downloadable so all you have to do is install it and - BAM! - instant filthiness.

...Dammit!