Time’s Enemy | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, July 28, 2011

I’m currently working on revising Time’s Fugitive, my second time travel romance, and sequel to my upcoming release, Time’s Enemy. Like Enemy, the first draft of this book was written a few years ago. What’s surprising is how many things in the world around us have changed since then – things that now need to be changed. For example, I have a scene where a character’s car breaks down, and the young driver and her passenger need to walk for help. Yes, they have cell phones – it wasn’t written that long ago – but what I now need to account for is the fact that many late-model cars (including the one they have) now come with some kind of navigation system, which also includes a way to call for help. This needs to be revised so that there’s a good reason they can’t just press the red button on the rearview mirror and get help from OnStar. Another book of mine features computer technology – including national security-sensitive software that goes missing. In the original book, written over ten years ago, the software was on a removable disk cartridge, like a Zip Disk. (Anyone remember those?) In a recent revision, this needed to be changed to be on a USB flash drive.

This reminded me of Stephen King’s The Stand – which I first read in the late 90’s, after it had been updated from the original version published in 1976. Definitely a book I enjoyed, despite a few details where not enough attention was given to updating. In the original version, characters drove across a post-apocalyptic U.S., preferably in the largest vehicles practical – in most cases, station wagons.

In the 90’s version, these characters were still taking station wagons.

Huh? In the 90’s I remember, there were a heck of a lot more minivans and SUVs than station wagons. Not to mention, a 4WD SUV would be much more practical than a station wagon, especially for driving off road. And cell phones? I don’t remember if they were mentioned – they might’ve been, and there was no power, hence no operable cell networks. But the characters used CB radios to communicate – which hit their heyday in the mid-70’s.

So think about those updates when you’re revising an old novel – I still enjoyed The Stand, but little details like this did take me out of the story, and remind me I was reading. So if the contemporary American heroine in the book you’re reading is in trouble and she’s not using her cell phone, you might flip to the copyright page, and see if you’re reading an old book. Otherwise, there’d better be a good reason that heroine can’t just call for help, or you might have an Update Fail on your hands.

Does it bother you to read books where the details are outdated? I’m willing to forgive it if it’s an old book, but otherwise, it might just be sloppy writing. What do you think?

by Jennette, July 25, 2011

A couple weeks ago, we discussed how we want to use our time… and how we actually do use that time. For those of us who work a full-time job, have a family, and have a writing “job” on the side, it can be especially challenging.

So how’s it going two weeks in? For me, it’s gone quite well… at least during the week. I’ve managed to get an hour of time working on my current book in revision each weeknight, just as I’d planned. In addition, I also got a workout in every night, something I haven’t done regularly for some time, so that’s significant.

The above is not to say my schedule never got disrupted, but that’s OK because I outlined it to allow for that.

For example: On Tuesday night, DH suggested going out to dinner. The Schedule allows for an hour for dinner, which includes spending time with and feeding the critters. It also allows an hour for chores. However, going out to dinner took two hours, as we met friends and had a couple beers too. So that night, something had to be sacrificed from the schedule: chore time. (Hint: any time something disrupts the schedule and something’s gotta go, chores wins, hands-down, unless there’s something there that can’t be put off, i.e. paperwork/bill paying when the bills are due within a few days.) On another day, I ended up doing unplanned mom-taxiing (and I think that was a day the paperwork couldn’t be put off), so writing business got left off. No problem there – I have it on the schedule every night, but honestly, there isn’t business stuff that needs to be done every night.

Where time management might continue to be a challenge is on the weekend. When we have Two Whole Days stretched out before us, it’s easy to put off whatever’s on the To-Do list, until next thing we know, it’s 10:30 PM Sunday night, and we haven’t written Monday’s blog yet <cough>. We also have the tendency to see that big block of time and fill it too full, without leaving any time for what the weekend’s supposed to be for: going somewhere, doing fun things with family and friends, or just relaxing – which are all sooo important, to avoid burnout.

So that’s my next challenge – get caught up on the stuff I didn’t get done this weekend, and figure out how to manage that time, so I don’t run into this next weekend.

Especially since I have some family fun planned.

What about you? Have you seen a difference since taking a harder look at how you spend your time? Any suggestions or insights to share?

Illustration via Microsoft Office Images

by Jennette, July 21, 2011

Last summer when I got a new computer, my 10-year-old CD of Microsoft Office 2000 finally bit the dust. The disk had become corrupted; the files would no longer copy from it to install.

So I investigated alternatives. I ruled out the new version of Office immediately: we have Office 2007 at work, and I hate it. Most people who, like me, have been using Office for many years hate it too, or at least did until they resigned themselves to its new interface. Come on, the “ribbon” takes up way too much screen space, even on a big monitor. And I have to re-learn where everything is? Just give me back my damn menus!

Oh, Office Ribbon - how do I hate thee?

Of course, there are older versions of Office for sale, unopened, on Ebay, some at great prices. But none were certified to run on Windows 7, which came with my new computer (and I’m quite happy with). Luckily, there’s also another alternative, for an even better price: OpenOffice. And it’s free – honest-to-goodness, legally, free. Just go to www.openoffice.org and download it.

It includes an alternative to each of the major components of Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access. It also comes with a drawing program.

The only part I’ve used enough to really evaluate is Writer, the Word-alternative. I’ve dabbled a bit with the spreadsheet, and so far, it seems like a decent facsimile of Office 2000’s Excel.

Yay! Menus!

Which makes me happy, because I don’t need all the whiz-bang features Microsoft’s added to the later versions of Office. OpenOffice has most of them, but best of all, it has menus, not that silly ribbon interface.

Granted, not everything’s in the same place. For example, Word’s Track Changes feature is on the Revisions ribbon. In older versions, it was in the Tools menu. In OpenOffice, it’s in the Edit menu, and it’s simply called Changes. But if I have to hunt around for features, hey, I’d rather do it in a free program! (They do take donations, if you’re so inclined.)

I have run into a few problems with OpenOffice Writer, however. Most of these show up when I save a document in a format other than .doc (Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier) or .odf (OpenOffice’s native format). .rtf is the worst. I’ve seen it muck up line spacing, and change fonts – and the latter not consistently. It’s made the first letter of every paragraph – and only the first letter – a different font- sometimes even a Chinese character!

It also corrupted the .doc file of my manuscript for Time’s Enemy. I didn’t find this out until I sent it to my editor, and it crashed her system every time she tried to open it in Word. I thought this might have been due to the fact that she uses a Mac, but when I tried it on my daughter’s computer (which still has Word 2000 installed on it), that blew up, too.

Luckily I could still open it on my computer in OpenOffice, and copy the content, and re-save as an .odt file. I then opened it in Word at work, and resaved as a .docx file, which worked fine for my editor.

So is OpenOffice a true replacement for Microsoft Office? After a year, the jury’s still out. But hey, at least the price is right! Now all I have to do is find a newer version or replacement for Quickbooks, that will read my Quickbooks 2005 data…

Know of any accounting software I should check out? Or do you have a software WTF to share? Feel free to vent here – we feel your pain!

by Jennette, June 23, 2011

Considering that I write time travel romances, I also like to read them. Same goes for other types of paranormal romance – shifters, fae, vampires, witches, other worlds, psychic powers, etc. My favorites almost always involve a main character who is initially unaware of his/her paranormal abilities or nature, or who comes into these abilities in the beginning of the book and must learn how to use this special nature or power. But one problem I have with many of these books is that these characters believe too easily. They learn something about themselves that no reasonable person would easily accept, then boom! Hey, I’m a vampire, that’s great (or sucks), and off the story goes, no problem.

I can suspend disbelief to accept, for the time I’m reading, that there are such things as vampies, werewolves, fairies, or time travel. But when a character with no previous experience, no reason to believe, suddenly finds he/she is one of the above and is almost immediately accepting of that fact – well, that’s a little harder to swallow.

The characters believe too easily, and in doing so, are less believable to me.

Grave New Day Cover One book I recently read where this was handled well was Grave New Day, an urban fantasy by Lina Gardiner. Jess, the main character, is a vampire – but she’s been one for a long time, so it makes sense that she’s with the program. What she finds unbelievable is meeting her human partner, John – who’d died in the previous installment of the series. He’s not a vampire – in Gardiner’s world, vampires can sense each other – but he seems to have some superhuman abilities he lacked before. Add to this the fact that he can’t remember who he is or how he came to wake in a mysterious, underground crypt, and the only understandable course is for Jess to be suspicious. John gradually discovers who he is, but the harder one to convince is Jess, and it takes her over halfway through the book before she believes.

In my upcoming time travel book, Time’s Enemy, main character Tony gains the ability to psychically travel in time after nearly dying in an accident. For the first few chapters, he’s convinced his trip to ancient Mayan times and being sacrificed was nothing more than a hallucination or a bad dream. Even when he travels back two years within his own life, he has trouble believing. Not until he finds the Saturn Society, a group of other time-travelers, does he begin to believe, as he develops the ability to control his travels.

If you read paranormal romance, fantasy or science fictions books dealing with the unbelievable, do you find that many characters believe too easily, and does it bother you? Or is it okay, as long as the story’s otherwise believable and entertaining?

Life and Love in Four Dimensions

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