Working on the Latest Book Continues

I was doing well with the blogging for a few days then I got distracted. I got sidetracked onto issues for which I have no control. New self-study set up a few revelations – a good way to start the new year – but now I have to get back to finishing the book. Three days, Jan. 20, will mark the year anniversary of leaving for the trip. 

I’ve been slowly whittling away at writing the book these past two months and it’s coming along. I write the chapters using journal, blog, and pocket notebook. I research historical information online to add to the story. Then I go to the photo program to edit pictures, and from the prints, I go back to the chapters to add better descriptions while editing and tightening up the grammar. I reached Day 19 of my 23 day journey and went to edit the photos taken of the day spent exploring Fredericksburg, Va. 

There are no photos in the Dropbox folder between Feb. 8 and April 24! Panic rippled through me. (I use Dropbox because I can access all my files from any computer.) Noooo! Does that mean I’ve lost the last pictures of my trip? Stop, calm down, think: this means I imported the last photos onto the HP PC, not into the Dropbox folder. The PC crashed the end of April but Schyler was able to rescue the entire hard drive and put in a generic folder on the new Apple MacBook Pro. Maybe, just maybe, I can find those pictures. 

I looked in the photo program where he told me to look. The pictures were not there. My heart broke, tears filled my eyes. What am I going to do? I started looking through every file on that old hard drive. It took over an hour and a little more freaking out, but I finally found the file holding those photos. I made notes of the entire path (and it is quite a path) through the various files to get to the one I needed.

However, it’s a read only file. I cannot edit or do anything to the picture. When I tried, it said the file was locked. I clicked the unlock button and read that I have to duplicate the picture and save it elsewhere. This means my editing process just took on a few more steps; tedious and time-consuming, but doable. 

This was a set-back. Now I am moving ahead again. Maybe when I get this book finished, I can figure out a way to go on another trip. There are still so many places to explore and favorite sites to revisit. Oh, I soooo want to travel!