Early writings

[PennLady]

My husband has been going through closets, etc., organizing his baseball cards and has found stories I started back in grad school and just after. Egads. I guess I should see if they're worth futzing with.

 

[JackLuis]

My husband has been going through closets, etc., organizing his baseball cards and has found stories I started back in grad school and just after. Egads. I guess I should see if they're worth futzing with.

How do they read? Has your writing improved? Do they have solid plots and resolution?

Unless they have 'redeeming qualities', I'd just keep them for reference.

 

[PennLady]

I don't think they read too badly, and some of it is just notes or scenes. A few I had to laugh at, as I couldn't remember exactly what I wanted to do with the story in question. I won't interrupt anything I'm doing now, but I think some of them could be spiffed up or rewritten. The ideas themselves aren't bad, really. It just cracks me up. Also, it's great b/c although I remember them, many of these I don't have on disc, or I have on discs I can't read. 3.5" floppy, anyone?

 

[sr71plt]

The sixth and last of a six-novel series that were my early writings of any length just got published last Friday under a pen name. I waited until I was publishable in the mainstream, dredged them out of the closets--had to have them scanned, as they were written before computer storage existed--rewrote them, and . . . suddenly . . . someone was interested.

So, don't throw anything away.

 

[PennLady]

The sixth and last of a six-novel series that were my early writings of any length just got published last Friday under a pen name. I waited until I was publishable in the mainstream, dredged them out of the closets--had to have them scanned, as they were written before computer storage existed--rewrote them, and . . . suddenly . . . someone was interested.

So, don't throw anything away.

No, I won't.

Oh, scanning. Hahaha. I could do that with the printed ones. It's been so long since I've done scanning and OCR that I didn't think of it. Much of what I found was handwritten, so I'd have to type it up. Some I can't recall if I ever typed up to start with.

Honestly, they're not too bad. Now they're almost all SF/F, and although a couple have romance lines they weren't done with romance or erotica in mind, although they could easily be tweaked, I think. God, some are 20 years old. Eeek.

One good thing might be is that if I hit a block -- or god forbid, finish a current story -- I have no lack of things to work on. And some are far enough along that I might be able to outline an end to them. Wow, what an idea.

This also makes me wonder if some other stories which I know were printed out might still be lurking in a box somewhere.

 

[The_Fool]

No Loving Wives in the mix?


*ducks*

 

[oggbashan]

... The ideas themselves aren't bad, really. It just cracks me up. Also, it's great b/c although I remember them, many of these I don't have on disc, or I have on discs I can't read. 3.5" floppy, anyone?

My computer, running XP, has a 3.5 floppy drive fitted and working. In the attic I have an older computer with a 3.5 and a 5.25 floppy drives, but I THINK I have copied all my older work from the floppies to CDs and DVDs as well as several hard drives.

My oldest stories were published in school magazines. Not only do I have those magazines, but the schools' associations have put all the back copies of the various school magazines on line as .pdf files.

 

[PennLady]

No Loving Wives in the mix?


*ducks*

Hahaha, no. This was long before I found Lit. This stuff is from the early 90s, before the internet is what it is. At the time I was reading a lot of sf/f, so that's what I wrote.

 

[PennLady]

My computer, running XP, has a 3.5 floppy drive fitted and working. In the attic I have an older computer with a 3.5 and a 5.25 floppy drives, but I THINK I have copied all my older work from the floppies to CDs and DVDs as well as several hard drives.

My oldest stories were published in school magazines. Not only do I have those magazines, but the schools' associations have put all the back copies of the various school magazines on line as .pdf files.

My hub's desktop has a floppy drive, but my disc is just too old. I work off a Win7 laptop, so I only have a CD/DVD drive. The one comp we have that might read it has, I think, a bad video card, so no luck there. I really think my best bet is to take it to Best Buy or some place that has tech help and see if they can read the discs I have.

None of this stuff was every published. None of it's even finished. Some of it did get printed for a creative writing class, I think. Wish I could find the rest of the stuff I did for that.

 

[estragon]

LaCie made, until recently, a floppy reader that plugged into my USB port. I still have some old floppies I read that way--primarily stuff from work. You might try PCMall or MacMall to buy a floppy reader. Mine cost less than $30, tax and shipping included.

 

[PennLady]

I recall that I have a Win98 laptop which may have a floppy drive. I'm hesitant to buy one because this is the only thing I think I'd need it for, so that seems a waste. I'm considering going to Best Buy or something, but I'll check the old laptop first.

 

[DG Hear]

My husband has been going through closets, etc., organizing his baseball cards and has found stories I started back in grad school and just after. Egads. I guess I should see if they're worth futzing with.

I had to laugh when you mention the baseball cards. I have over a half million cards. Baseball, football, Basketball and some hockey. Plus autographed ball photos, cards, etc.

You're also a movie buff. I have hundreds of movies on VCR and DVD's now. Also collect the tv series.

 

[sr71plt]

I recall that I have a Win98 laptop which may have a floppy drive. I'm hesitant to buy one because this is the only thing I think I'd need it for, so that seems a waste. I'm considering going to Best Buy or something, but I'll check the old laptop first.

The mainstream publishers I work with still use floppies and they haven't upgraded much above Win98. So I have to have an external floppy drive and, although I have Win7 on my computers, I have to step everything down that I work on with a publisher. Bill Gates doesn't seem to realize that publishers can't afford to regear every two years.

 

[PennLady]

I had to laugh when you mention the baseball cards. I have over a half million cards. Baseball, football, Basketball and some hockey. Plus autographed ball photos, cards, etc.

You're also a movie buff. I have hundreds of movies on VCR and DVD's now. Also collect the tv series.

DG, my husband can give you a run for the money -- he also has nearly half a million baseball cards, plus football, baseball and hockey cards. He has a number of autographed balls, bats, etc. My son is now getting into baseball cards, too.

We have probably 200 or so DVD movies and we also do some TV series. Last year we finally put our CDs in four of those big books to clear off some space.

 

[PennLady]

The mainstream publishers I work with still use floppies and they haven't upgraded much above Win98. So I have to have an external floppy drive and, although I have Win7 on my computers, I have to step everything down that I work on with a publisher. Bill Gates doesn't seem to realize that publishers can't afford to regear every two years.

Hmmm. I'll have to remember that.

 

[PennLady]

Alas, the laptop has no floppy drive... sigh...

 

[sethp]

go to craigs list and search for floppy drives...a quick one here results in

Various used PC parts. $1/each.

PCI NIC (network card), Intel 10/100
101 keyboard (Key Tronic)
1.44MB floppy drive.
56k Motorola PCI modem

also try emailing the files from the pc with the floppy? Pm me for more direct help. Maybe I can help you out!

 

[estragon]

I'm Running a G. B. Shaw Special Today

Somewhere or another he said "No novel is too bad not to be worth publishing, provided it is a novel and not an ineptitude." Especially is this true in the digital age, when the costs of paper and ink and distribution don't enter the equation. Don't throw anything away, just archive it.

 

[Jake Marlow]

Was the disk some version of Windows or DOS? Either way, if it's FAT formatted you should be able to open it. You could try going to the FedEx store (Kinko's) and see if their computer will read it. My earliest computer writings were done in WordStar on a DOS machine, but I think I recovered them long ago.

 

[sr71plt]

Was the disk some version of Windows or DOS? Either way, if it's FAT formatted you should be able to open it. You could try going to the FedEx store (Kinko's) and see if their computer will read it. My earliest computer writings were done in WordStar on a DOS machine, but I think I recovered them long ago.

Mine were done on a Magnavox word processor. Completely self-contained and with thick floppies. The Kinkos people just smiled at me and suggested trying to find a technology museum somewhere.

 

[PennLady]

Was the disk some version of Windows or DOS? Either way, if it's FAT formatted you should be able to open it. You could try going to the FedEx store (Kinko's) and see if their computer will read it. My earliest computer writings were done in WordStar on a DOS machine, but I think I recovered them long ago.

I believe it is most likely the files would be in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS format. Some might be text. The system was likely Windows 3.1. It is FAT formatted as far as I know, and previous attempts just led to errors in reading. Now, of course, they may be unreadable after all this time. However, I'd like to find out for sure; I think when we tried before the error messages led us to believe our computers were too new and the disks too old.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I own an outboard floppy drive. The cops can usually access old records if you touch base with their com people.

If the records are really ancient the Smithsonian can help you. One of my teachers had a recording of his dad's voice circa 1910's, on a primitive kind of tape recording no one knew what to do with, and the Smithsonian transferred the sound to a CD for him.

 

[estragon]

I hasten to point out to the mods that this is not spam; I don't sell this stuff, have no pecuniary interest in this manufacturer or this retailer. I will say I've dealt with this retailer in the past and have been satisfied with the merchandise and the service. For less than thirty bucks, shipping included, you can buy the following from macmall.com:
Micropac Technologies USB External 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive Black
This 3.5" 1.44MB External USB Floppy Disk Drive is super slim and lightweight and brings more functionality and versatility to your USB equipped Macintosh or PC computer.

Now if the issue is the software in which the documents were originally written, that's another story. JEJ and sr71plt may both be right; only a museum may have hardware compatible with stone-age software.

 

[sr71plt]

Now if the issue is the software in which the documents were originally written, that's another story. JEJ and sr71plt may both be right; only a museum may have hardware compatible with stone-age software.

The funny thing is that the "stone age" in computers wasn't that far ago in some places. The six books I composed on a Magnavox word processor were keyed in between 1992 and 1996 in the Mediterranean. And that was about as good as it got there then. In the mid 80s, the best I could do in Thailand was a manual typewriter.

Years before that I can remember sitting in a briefing where we were confidently told that the way to go for document storage was microfiche. That it would be retrievable for us in the form forever.

 

[PennLady]

Thanks for all the ideas. I just see very little other use for an external drive, so I'm keeping that as a last resort. But it's always a possibility.