Thursday, September 23, 2010

writing problem of the moment

The baby won't let me get 15 minutes to write on my novel, so here is a quick blog post.

My laptop's N key stopped working (very annoying when so many of your characters have n's in their names - Nico, Slorn, and Miranda, I hate you. (NOT REALLY DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT)), so I've been writing on an old, POS computer with a copy of MSWord that doesn't like putting bookmarks in. You see, normally when I'm working through a section to edit it and I have to stop for the day, I'll just insert a bookmark called "EDIT" wherever I stopped. This way I can jump back to my place with a simple click the next time I get a chance to write. Clever, right?

Well, now that fail computer with its fail copy of Word won't play nice with bookmarks, I've been just typing the word EDIT into my manuscript wherever I stop and using the search function to jump back to my place the next time I open the file. Usually, this works great. I use it when I have to write in OpenOffice too. But this time, not so good. See, I have a character named Gredit who gets mentioned a lot in book 4. Gredit... plus a dumb search feature that refuses to respect "whole words only"...

You see where this is going...

So search hops to every mention of Gredit's name before finding my actual "EDIT" marker. I suppose I could stop being so ghetto and get a better copy of MSWord, but right now all I can think about is how deeply I regret naming Gredit Gredit.

When people ask me what's the hardest part about being a writer, they get stories like this.

GAH x 10^9

3 comments:

Mom said...

I had the same problem -- well not with the sticking N key. (Poor Miranda and Slorn!) I started marking my place with *EDIT* and that did the trick for me.

Rachel Aaron said...

I gave in and bought a new laptop! Of course, it helps that the husband has been after me for a new laptop forever, but I'm calling this a writing purchase! :D

Kalayna Price said...

That is the best story ever. LOL