Not-so-old faithful

[pbray]

I'm grateful that my laptop survived long enough to allow me to complete THE FIRST BETRAYAL, but I think it's time to face reality and look at getting a new computer.

The current laptop is only three years and eight months old, but it's already had two hard drive replacements, the current hard drive is acting wonky, and the CDROM burner will no longer format new CDs so I'm reduced to reusing old CDs.

Now is a good time to get the new computer and make the switch from Windows 98SE to a new platform before I get deeply involved in the new book.

I may also upgrade my printer. My current printer is an HP inkjet that I purchased back in 1997 to celebrate the release of my first book. By today's standards it's a tad slow, with a paper tray that holds just under 100 sheets, and it takes around two and a half hours to print a manuscript.

Be sure to check out bear knocks on door for food and engineering jobs available at Google.

Comments

Your New Laptop

[(Anonymous)]

I just had to upgrade my laptop this past winter too. Advice is like...well you know...however, I chose to go for the DVD/CD burner combo drive rather than the CD Burner. DVD's hold more information AND I think it is the new mode for the future. I was afraid of the dreaded incompatibility issue. My five year old laptop had that problem without a CD burner and with new computers not having the 3.5" drives at all. My files would no longer fit neatly onto a 3.5" disk so I was reaching that "Dangerously near the trapped on the computer for good" point. I had a look through several consumer reports when I was researching laptops. Oh, you will get Windows XP will ye nil ye nowadays. grin. Still, I don't like working on the new HP quite as well as the old Compaq. Sigh. Actually touching the computer before buying was helpful to me (I sent that DELL back). Good luck with your new laptop. Cheers, JD She.

Re: Your New Laptop

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. I love how we can read ancient clay tablets and papyri that are thousands of years old, but the electronic age has made our data fragile and we have to keep migrating from one storage medium to another. Floppy disks and CDs can degrade over time, so a computer upgrade is also a good time to copy my old files to new media to make sure they are still readable.

Writing Question

[(Anonymous)]

I have a novel question (sorry, pun) for you.
Using the Devlin series (a series I enjoyed BTW) as an example, how many pages long were your manuscripts? Single or double spaced? Did your editor chop much out? Is The First Betrayal about the same size?
Cheers,
JD

Re: Writing Question

[pbray.livejournal.com]

The final copy of DEVLIN'S LUCK was roughly 400 pages (standard manuscript format which is one inch margins, double spaced, Courier 12-pt font). this translates to a calculated word count of 100,000 words, which is a pretty typical length for a fantasy novel.

I just finished the THE FIRST BETRAYAL which came in slightly longer, at 420 pages.

The first series was tightly written, so the comments from my editor were requests to add or expand scenes, rather than taking anything out. Waiting to see what she thinks of the new manuscript.

Re: Writing Question

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the manuscript size info. They still want Courier? Not Times or Times New Roman? Courier is so ugly. (My artist bone is cringing).

Good luck with your new book, I will be watching for it because I liked the Devlin series so much.
Some of the things I appreciated about your Devlin series:
1. It was gripping.
2. I liked the characters. This is a big thing for me!
3. No excessive scene flicking. You know, switching from character group to character group too often and/or too quickly. Pet peeve of mine.
4. It was clean = no perverted, child/sheep molesting rapists running rampant. I gave up reading fantasy for a while because I didn't like the 'Sex as a Weapon' motif or flat out crudeness that was the fashion for a few years there. The fantasy genre seems to be getting back to a good story and away from such crude pushing the envelope tactics.
The Devlin series now occupies valuable real estate on one of my bookshelves in the 'Keeper' section.
Cheers, JD

Re: Writing Question

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words!

Courier is still standard. Production editors like to work with it since it's a known quantity, so their formulas are designed to say that X pages of 12 point Courier = Z book pages.

Some editors/houses will take Times New Roman, Arial or other fonts, but others will see these as a sign that you don't understand how to properly prepare a manuscript. Unless you know for certain that the editor or agent looking at the manuscript is open to other fonts, it's best to stick with the industry standard for mansucript submission which is Courier (or Courier New).

Re: Writing Question

[(Anonymous)]

You're welcome.

Now that's something I never knew. Courier, who'd a thought? I really did think that everyone had graduated to Times New Roman. I'll add font preference to my list of questions to ask first.

Still, courier is really ugly (wrinkles nose) and Arial is so...blah.

Cheers,
From a curious JD (who is quite tickled that you took the time to answer my questions. Wow. How cool is that?!)