Writing about filing systems
So, a new year’s writing has begun. I haven’t started my new job yet, so in the last week I’ve added about 15,000 words to the work in progress. I’ve just saved my ‘January 08, 2008′ file and sent it to my Gmail account as a back up.
Writing about writing, Week #15
How do you organise your writing on your computer? Do you just have one document for each piece? Or do you have separate files for each chapter or section? When you redraft something do you write over top of your original or do you save a new document?
And as a bonus question, what software do you use for your writing?
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I use just one document for each version of a piece. So the entire novel will be one document, but I will have separate documents for each draft. I use OpenOffice, which is a free alternative to Word.
PS I back up to an external hard drive but maybe I should email to myself as well - that’s quite clever.
I write each new scene in a new file. These go directly into my storyboard software as well as saved in their folder under scene number. I back up the whole book folder to my portable USB drive and my secondary internal hard drive. I keep meaning to email myself the files as well. It is such a great idea.
I don’t know why I’ve established the system I have. It works for me and it means I’m dealing with segments in reasonable chunks. When I have all the scenes together in one file it feels overwhelming. 80,000 words also takes a lot longer to load than 1,000. It also means I can easily move scenes around.
My storyboarding software will print the scenes in order in one file when I’m ready to edit hardcopy. Eventually I will have to move all of this information into a single document but while I’m working on each section it is easier to manage in small chunks.
I contain it all in one file, but back it up on floppy disk. I’m always afraid that if I leave it all on my computer, it may just vanish into thin air!
In the beginning and then again when I’m finished, I will send myself a copy via email. (It’s always interesting to see the start and end dates!)
When finished I will do a hard copy edit, then save that to a separate floppy. I do the same with each edit, so I can see my progression, and make sure I’m making improvements, not a mess of things! Ha!
Oh, and I use OpenOffice.
Sounds like everyone’s doing well with the back-ups.
What I’ve found lately is that I’ll copy a chapter to a new file to send it to someone or take it along ot a writing group, then I’ll notice something on it and edit that file - not the file with my complete version. After a while it becomes difficult to remember which is the most up to date version! Very much a flaw in the system…