Back when "save" used to mean something

Who can walk me through a procedure for insuring that Open Office 3.0 will actually SAVE the changes I make my manuscript?

Yesterday, I spent 20 minutes of my life reformatting a manuscript OO3 had whimsically decided to make single-spaced. And, yes, it was 20 minutes because, though the text is double-spaced, each chapter heading is single spaced, so we're not just talking a simple select-all-line-spacing-double. However, I made the changes, swearing the entire time, SAVED THE FILE and got on with writing the next chapter, in its own file.

This morning, having edited the chapter I wrote yesterday, I opened the master file, discovering to what delight you may imagine, that, yep, the whole damn' thing is single spaced again.

I note that OO3 wants me to Save Everything in whatever-the-heck its native format is. This is not an option as the manuscript will eventually, please ghod, go to someone who wishes it to be in .rtf format. Double-spaced. With the chapter headings single-spaced. And one-inch margins all around. No matter what Open Office 3.0 thinks is cool.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

The battle between the left and the right

It is Said that creative folk are right-brained; they don't deal well with organizational challenges, or things requiring step-by-step, by-the-numbers kind of reasoning.

Like most things in life, this is only sorta true. I, for instance, appear to have a right brain/left brain toggle up there in the Control Room. At need, I can organize like a sumbitch; this is, after all, how I've most often made a weekly paycheck: organizing stuff for people who for whatever reason Don't Do That.

However, when I am Truly Immersed in a story, all bets are off. Important Pieces of Paper(tm) get lost; checks don't get written on time; and I forget how to do Perfectly Simple Things.

...and that, in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen, is why it is so difficult for me to write after doing the stint at the day-job. Getting over to the right brain after a day of left-braining isn't as easy as it used to be. Well. Used to be that I could slip back and forth from one side to t'other like a guppy through jello (euwwww). But no more. I think I need brain-toggle oil.

In other news, and despite various software sabotages, Fledgling proceeds, if not apace, then at a good stiff stride. Subplots have been strengthened, motivations have been beaten into shape out of thin air, and I am Cautiously Optimistic regarding the outcome of the four-day of work, during which I will most earnestly try not to lose my car keys.