Editing

I have been working on re-editing my cookbook. I started writing it almost as soon as I got married, and now I have about 300 pages and probably more than 325 recipes collected. The idea was that I'd have a cookbook my kids could use as they grew up and learned to cook. And, of course, I want to give them copies when they get out on their own.

Well, guess what? My kids are going out on their own! So I decided it's time to stop collecting new recipes and bind the old, tried-and-true ones into a real book—instead of the home-printed, loose-leaf-bound thing I've had all this time. At first I started copying it into Blurb, which is where I go to print my very lovely blog-books every year. But by the time I'd entered probably 90% of my recipes into their program—editing as I went—I realized that this was going to be a $120 cookbook. I wouldn't get myself a $120 cookbook unless it was truly fabulous—which mine is! But I certainly can't get nine fabulous, $120 cookbooks so that each of my kids can have one too. So I looked into other programs and printing options.

I think I know how I'm going to publish my tome now (and it will probably only cost around $30 per book), but it means I need to edit it again. Which probably isn't a bad thing. Unfortunately I have to edit it in MS Word, which kind of is a bad thing. This means I'm copying it back from Blurb into MS Word, and scanning for errors again as I go. Not bad. The bad part is that Word keeps saying it can't save my files because of a missing something or other, a corrupt file, or a missing pathway. And then it deletes my work entirely and shuts down the program! When I look around there is no "2014 cookbook" document to be found—not even in the trash! There are no words to say how angry and frustrated this makes me. Even when Word claims to have "rescued" my document, this is all I see:

Wow! Thanks for saving that for me, MS Word!

Not particularly helpful.

So I came up with a system: I started a new cookbook document on one of my thumb-drives, but then saved it on another drive as well. This is how my editing process goes now: I copy the title of a recipe from Blurb to Word, then I immediately save it to both drives. Then I copy the ingredients list for the recipe and immediately save it to both drives. Then I copy the instructions and immediately save it to both drives. If I have a picture to add, I add it and then immediately save it to both drives. Then I re-read the recipe, make sure everything is correct and formatted to look good and immediately save it to both drives. I can get through two to four recipes before my glitch decides to delete the entire file. But even though it has disappeared from one drive, I still have it saved on the backup drive. So as soon as I open it up on one drive I save it to the other drive from which it was deleted. Then I start the process again.

Now, every time Word shuts down it adds another temporary file to my thumb-drive which, for some reason, my computer doesn't want me to delete. So my list of files looks like this:

Every. Single. One of those things listed is a temp file that my computer insists I can't delete. (36 of them in that particular editing session.)

I did finally discover that if I eject the drive and plug it back in, the computer will let me delete the rotten files. So at least my thumb-drives aren't going to end up littered with a gazillion stupid temp files forever and ever.

It's taken me nearly 25 years to collect my recipes, stories and tips. It looks like it may take another 25 to get the book ready for printing. But when it's done it will be awesome! Don't it make you wish you had a copy?