Slow and steady, slow and steady... but mostly just slow.
I'm trying to complete it before the expiration date for the "free proof copy" offer occurs, because I'd like to actually see this once through to completion. This may have to wait until 2011 for the 2010 offer, though. At least I'm planning ahead.
Anyone else making slow headway on a creative endeavor? I could use some cheerleading and/or mutual support.
8 comments:
Well, I started a (supposed) short story around the time of NaNo, but didn't intend for it to be a NaNo-based writing; now it's more like a novelette, and isn't yet done. It's sci-fi, some loose thematic resemblences to William Gibson's stuff, about a post-modern-society, titled "Losers Blend".
I started writing it by fountain pen, then typed that portion up on my Olivetti 23; now I've transcribed those pages into my Neo, from which I'll continue writing and editing the story to completion. And I'll probably upload backup copies to my PC, along the way, for safekeeping. Cause you just never know.
~Joe
I really haven't gotten back into the swing of writing since moving. Haven't worked on so much as a journal entry in the last couple of weeks. I only have maybe a few thousand words left to write for my NaNoWriMo story, so I've no excuse for not finishing it.
Then I need to transcribe whatever I didn't write directly on the Neo (as some may recall, I failed miserably at typewriting...er...I mean...*switched strategies* about halfway through the month, so I have some digital, some real).
And then...I have to edit. Ungh.
So you're way ahead of me. If that makes you feel better.
@Joe: You never know indeed. I have been mailing myself multiple copies of the (growing) file each time I fill a slot on the AlphaSmart and download it. I'm about due to dump it onto my collection of thumb-drives, too.
@LFP: I should mention that I've done a whole read-through, which took a while, since I did some amount of marking up then. But the transcribing is evolving into a transcribe-and-rewrite, which is, of course, hard to done on the narrow AlphaSmart screen. It's so hard not to fix some of the junk I churned out in November, but I should really just be digitizing everything as/is, and then cleanup later against my annotated draft.
And of course, it's much more fun to complain and moan about how much work is left to be done than to actually do it. At least you have moving in the middle there and your Day In Court to occupy your time. I'm just fighting the temptation to ignore it all and watch "Law & Order" reruns every night.
I have yet to revise my Nano. I even bought a Unicomp (Which I love) to aid in the process. I think though like LFP, I just don't have the time after this move process. Today I spent the whole day setting up the garage and putting things in the attic. I am also doing school five hours a day during the week plus homework on top of that. I really need to buckle down though and get to work.
Any ideas on how well OCR would work with the Selectric print? The print is dark and clear, it just would seem that an OCR program would pick it up great. It would just be nice to do draft 2 on the IBM and bring it somewhere (Office Max maybe?) to have it digitized.
Yeah, I have been slacking on my Nano 2009. I still have about half of it to write and I've really just hit a bit of a mental and motivational block. I have been capturing some ideas on my digital recorder, but as of yet, I have not moved those to paper or really done much with them. So, Mike, you are way ahead of me!
As to OCR, the SM-9 OCR'd quite well. I have a cheap Lexmark All-In-One that I bought from Wal-Mart for $30 some years ago and the scanning software it came with does a nice job. There are only a couple letters it doesn't recognize (mainly when I strikethru or get some blotchy ink). Overall, though, it works nicely and gets a page digitized in roughly 20-30 seconds.
When I took my 194 page document to Kinko's to do the same thing, the quote I got was close to $400!!! I was not happy about that.
Didn't you consider scanning and then using an OCR software to digitise the MSS?
I did scan it, but the software I was using didn't do a very good job of recognizing. I'd be spending about as much time cleaning up the scan as I would just retyping, and at least with the AlphaSmart, I can do the work on the sofa instead of locked in front of the PC.
Tragic sigh...
My NaNoNovel from 2009 ain't even finished yet, so there's that. And 2008 is waiting to be edited once the other one is finished.
Still, I'm plugging away every day. And! I just met with a physicist friend of mine to hammer out some details. Consulting with experts is fun!
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