Rilbur

I actually do have a dropbox account, the problem is that I frequently don't have internet access either. It certainly isn't 'reliable'. My thumbdrive is set up to automatically backup every couple of hours to my HD (reads don't consume lifespan, only writes, from what I understand, so I'm exploiting this). Also, I tend to pay the premium for good, high-end hardware. As such, I can loose practical maximum of one day's work on a given file, especially since my hardware tends to last me for several years. Eventually, I will loose work when a device fails. But... rewriting a scene, with rare exceptions, is generally quite a bit easier than writing it the first time. (The rare exception would be the major 'trauma' scenes, where something so traumatic happens to your characters that it bounces back into you. For example, I could not re-write the rape scene in Guardians with ease.) Edit: Oh, and I nearly forgot the point I was going to make with this post. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree, because using the thumb drive like I do now is just too appropriate to my lifestyle to give up. All I can do is make sure I have regular, thorough backups done.

That soon?! COOL! If you need any help with testing, drop me a line... I'm good at breaking things

A few details / habits that explain our differences of opinion. 1. Thumb drives don't suffer from fragmentation. They can't. Not because the data won't be fragmented over the device, but because it doesn't matter. it only matters on 'traditional' hard drives, because in-order sequential reading (writing) is the quickest way to do it. You have to physically move the head along the platter, and wait for the magnetic platter to reach the right point to read from the disk. On a thumb drive, this is a non-issue. 2. I don't keep my stories in one large file. I have every chapter separately labeled as it's own file, along with a file just for writing (hold over from when I wrote in a hand held device 'on the go', something I don't do anymore). As a result, the average read / write is much smaller, especially since I aim my chapters to be about 5000 words long. 3. I've never actually faced such a break down. I make a habit of replacing my thumb drives on a regular basis (usually for size / speed increases, about once every two years), and I actually have software specifically to automatically back my data up (twice; once to my primary HD, and then every once in a while my primary HD is backed up to my 'backup' drive). If I'd been hit by this problem, I'd probably be more careful. 4. Until recently, I did a lot of bouncing between computers to work. A thumb drive was the only device that made sense for that. In fact, it's still the only data storage device that makes sense, in a lot of ways, because I can't reliably say 'I WILL have access to my desktop'.

The third chapter is wonderful, and I can already feel the buildup towards a great big, enormous, and terrible 'oh shit!' moment.

I can understand that... just wish this story hadn't been the victim, as it were.

Agreed. It's possible that we're looking at the random hand of chance -- a lot of people died in that time frame -- but... who knows. From what I read of the series, they were planning against a disaster they saw coming, for the entire system to 'fall apart' as it were. When the disaster happened, they were just lucky enough to have planned ahead, and were able to use it.

Personally, I wouldn't call word editing a 'sustained write operation', or sustained read. There are intermittent writes -- depending on the software used, you generally get a five minute 'autosave' function that helps recover from crashes and other failures -- but nothing sustained. A bigger problem would be that flash drives have a finite lifespan; they're only designed to be read/written from a finite, though large, number of times. Eventually, the bits stop flipping right and you wind up with... well, I don't think you can even call it a paper weight, not heavy enough. For that reason, I personally wouldn't recommend staying on the same drive 'too long'; depending on usage patterns that could be anywhere from a month (if you're doing sustained read/write operations, which is a Really Bad Idea; go ahead and pay for a hard drive of some kind!) to years. Personally, I use a program that provides automatic backup, so I'll just keep going until the drive fails, but I used to maintain a two year rule. (Old drives can still be useful; I kept my old one for use as a 'quarantine drive' when I need to interact with a suspect system, which is to say transfer files to it.)

Fascinating chapter... I can hardly wait to see where this ends up. And the explosion when the truth comes out -- as it always does -- will be absolutely wonderful, I'm sure.

That was pretty good.

That was... beautiful. I just hope the e-mail listed at the bottom is still accurate, and valid.

I haven't been following the story (actually, I haven't had time to follow a lot of stories, school / work / my own writing keeps me busy), but I finally decided to throw my own .02$ in. Tough scenes are part of a good story. Sometimes in life, bad things happen. When a story is written to be 'true', (as opposed to 'real'), sometimes bad things need to happen in it. In 'Heart and Home: Finding My Way Home Book 2', several major characters are killed in a completely random accident. It's devastating. It's horrifying. There isn't even a decent 'why' to be had. But it makes the story that much more powerful, and it insures that no one who reads Boudreaux's work will ever take what happens lightly. In my own writing, I wrote a rape scene for Guardians that literally pulls no punches. It got re-written a bit to focus less on the highly-disturbing physical side and more on the emotional trauma, but if anything that made it more potent, more powerful. I actually have trouble reading that scene; I wrote it 'from the heart' and to read it tears at me as if I'm the person whose pinned to the bed, helpless. Sometimes, a story has to go dark places if you are to do it justice. While it's always wise to warn the readers ahead of time, never -- ever! -- apologize for it. It is what it is. And if anyone doesn't like that, they can go take a flying leap!

What makes these lines rather amusing is the fact that, with 'The End' of one of my stories coming up, I'm considering acting on the 'when are you going to publish' type questions I keep getting... and 2$ for the e-book version, when a free web version is available elsewhere, seems just about 'right'! (Though I'm actually focusing on getting a print-on-demand physical copy for people who want that)

That was a great story, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

A little place to talk about what I hope is one of everyone's favorite stories. As I noted in the announcement and the story itself, this is a rewrite of the original novella submitted in the contest. I hope everyone enjoys it.

I'm guessing, from what you're saying, that he used a predefined 'boilerplate' rather than writing his own? Personally, I'm wondering if any of my work is going to be 'tapped'. Most of the stuff under 'Rilbur' isn't exactly 'txtgasm' material, but I do have a few stories out there under psuedonyms that I keep meaning to go back to and work with.

I mostly used the free books to pick up all the hardcover books I'd bought back before I had an e-reading device (an old palm handheld, second hand from my dad... then I 'graduated' to buying a Tungsten E2, then a Palm Treo, and now I'm on a Samsung moment with a e-reader app).

Probably because they want you to go ahead and buy the actual ebook at webscriptions.

I've been told I can write. I'm also a decent programmer. Play a bit of music. Did I mention I can write?

I'll chime in with my support with thunderbird, though google mail has it's own quirks you should be aware of. (The only one that's ever caused me problem is it's non-standard implementation of pop3: rather than letting the pop3 client decide if e-mails get deleted from server or not, you use the web-settings to do it, with the result that you can't have a mobile device to check the mail and then have your computer be the only one deleting it from server).

But just imagine the fun of being able to read a good book on your phone while eating lunch... like any of the stories posted on e-fiction, for example That's one major reason to go with a smartphone! I use it as an e-reader, and because it has a good web-browser attached, I'm not stuck to 'normal' books, I can grab 'em online too. I used to be a die-hard Palm fan, but they're going down the drain so I jumped ship to a Samsung Moment (android). Great phone!

Heh. That scene was always an interesting one. I especially love the 'subliminal message' in it.

That was so perfect! LOL!

Chapter 22 is now available for your reading pleasure, and I'm curious how many people I've managed to tick off with the 'yes, you could have stopped your rapist' line. And how many people read on long to understand the full argument I imagine a lot of people are going to be less than happy with the way I handled that, but... I've made my arguments in the story; counter them if you can.

I've posted Chapter 12; please let me know if some of the formatting looks wrong, or chunks of the story missing. I had severe issues with the e-fiction software while putting this up.

Hrm... long time since I've posted in here! Chapter 21 is up on the e-fiction board, so there's plenty of stuff for people to read!