TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE

Did this ever happen to you? You're working in MS Word, putting the final touches on some manuscript. You save your changes, check the word count real quick, then close the document.

A window pops up: Do you want to save the changes you made to "Excellent Book"?

And you're thinking, "What changes?"

Now you get all paranoid. What happened? Was there some sort of glitch? Did the power flicker or something? Did I lean on the keyboard, introducing spurious characters someplace in the depths of my manuscript? Where's that damn cursor right now?

So, what do you do? If you save changes, and you DID lean on the keyboard or something, you could be messing up your perfect book. If you don't save changes, you could be losing those perfect last-minute adjustments you just made. Are you absolutely sure you saved your changes before trying to close the document?

This is serious! You were all over that book today, tweaking this and that and getting it just the way you wanted it. If you had to start the day over again, would you be able to find all those places and make all those changes again? Almost impossible!

Okay, you might try this: Click "Cancel" on that warning window and go back into editing mode. Click File and Save As and create a new title for the work. This copy should have those changes Word was talking about, whether they be spurious or essential.

If you saved changes in the original version (as you're convinced you did), then it's fine under the old name. When you have time, you can open one version and use Track Changes to see if the other version has differences you want to keep. (It almost certainly won't.)

At lot of trouble, right?

Or you could do this: Trust that you saved changes in the first place.

And remember this glitch in Word: Checking the word count triggers a request for saving changes. Nothing actually happened. There ARE no changes in the text of your manuscript. Say Yes or say No, it makes no difference.

Just to be sure (sort of), train yourself to check the word count BEFORE you save current changes. There'll be no warning on exit.

On the other hand, can you really be sure you DIDN'T lean on the keyboard or something? Are you willing to run this version through KindleGen directly to the "shelves" of Amazon, where all the world can view your perplexing display of gibberish?

"What's this?" a reader might exclaim. "Is the author having a stroke? Is the character supposed to be having a stroke? Am I having a stroke?"

Personally, I don't set KindleGen loose on a Word doc. I create a text file, run it through MobiPocket Creator, and open the HTML in Notepad++. Once there I view the book numerous times in my browser, along with several other times in Kindle Previewer. There still maybe things wrong with it, but at least I can be sure there are no bouts of "keyboard-leaning" gibberish anywhere in there.

Unless my Oldtimers' Disease kicked in, then all bets are off.

Isn't paranoia a lovely way to spend your hours?