IWSG - June: Out to Lunch

The Insecure Writers Support Group meets online every first Wednesday of the month. Founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh, IWSG was created to support and encourage all writers in every phase of their work, from writing to marketing. Click here to join, and for information, writing tips and more. 
 
The awesome co-hosts for the the June 3 posting of the IWSG will be M. Pax, Tracy Jo, Patricia Lynne, Rachna Chhabria, Feather Stone, and Randi Lee!


This has been an interesting month with family visiting and then my fiasco with Google+ when I attempted to remove all of my blog photos/images from my Android LG Smart phone. 

Please permit me to rant a bit....


First of all, I never asked Google to upload my blog photos/images to my phone to begin with, but they did, all 800 of them. This happened about the same time I signed up for Google+. When I tried to remove the images, they disappeared on my blog, so I did a redo and backed out. Meanwhile, they were starting to use up massive amounts of memory on my phone. I spent hours researching settings and fixes, and found nothing to help. (Unsynching, the logical fix for future storage, messed up Gmail and other Google services). 

I suspected Google+ was the problem. I had recently severed the computer link to my blog, because of the meandering trail it created for those trying to reach my blog (and got my Blogger profile back). But Google+ was still on my phone. I decided to uninstall it, which of course wasn't possible (Androids are a Google product). I disabled a Picasa uploader instead and tried unsynching everything again. All Picasa storage stopped (yay!), but there were consequences. My punishment (because it certainly felt like punishment) was to lose every photo and image on my blog! (Online, someone else said they lost 2000 blog photos, which ruined their blog).
 
Granted, I still had them in personal files and Picasa, but it meant having to fix blog posts that go back to 2011. This is a huge deal, because a lot of my posts are the equivalent of scrap-booking about my life. They mean a lot to me! Do I blame Google? Yes, for sending everything to my phone in the first place. Am I dumping Google? Of course not. I would not be blogging today or enjoying and benefiting from all the internet has to offer if it were not for them.....and admittedly, there is that thing called "learning curve" on my part. (see below on PDF)

I haven't fixed every post (there are over 300), but I've spent a few maniac nights redoing posts I felt were important, mainly the a-z and travel posts. So I'm fed up with it all right now......blogging, computers, writing, all of it. With more family coming in mass in a little over a week, I see no other recourse but to take a blog break for a month, probably less, once I get my barrings back. I think we need to be good to ourselves, don't you? And I've reached my limit on patience.

One bright note is I have started taking my blog more seriously. I have since learned how to convert an entire blog into a PDF document. Haven't done this yet but so far, BlogBooker looks pretty good; and there are other tools online too (some you purchase), all designed to preserve your long hard work for family and future readers. I do feel dumb I didn't pursue this sooner. I guess in some ways I was not taking my writing seriously enough, so this has been a hard learning curve. For those of you who have long since discovered this, bravo!  

I share this for those of you who are still learning :)

On another bright note.....I did take the time to organize all of my writing 'how-to' advice and instructions I've been collecting from online sites, printed material, and workshops. I had quite a stack, which is now neatly held in a binder (still doing the tabs). I know there are a lot of great books on writing out there, but this is my personal go-to manual with things I personally need to know. Books on writing often repeat what I already know and I find myself searching the index or going online in search of more specific (and current) information. 

The weather here in Desert Aire is also quite glorious and my garden has never looked better.....and with family on the way, life is precious and good, so out to lunch for awhile. Back soon! 

(I'll keep the Opening Lines series going :)