Feb 15, 2010

Back-Up













As writers, there are things we have to pay serious attention to outside of our writing and one of them is backup.

It’s too late when the computer crashes to start thinking about backing up your work.

Personally I use a USB pen to backup when I finish each session, and then at the end of every day I use the Click-free.

It’s idiot proof, which suits me. You simply plug it in and it gets to work. And it backs up everything from emails to software.

Honestly I kid you not – it’s plug in and go. Available worldwide. I got mine in Back To The Future in Dublin after watching a demonstration on it on Ireland AM on TV3.

I just can’t recommend it highly enough – and no, I don’t get any commission. But what I do get is peace of mind, which of course is priceless!

With a smile
Ita x

A Few Things You Don't Know About Me (Maybe!)


















Following in the footsteps of Catherine Caffeinated  – a blog I torridly enjoy – here are five things you may not know about me. Catherine covered ten things in her blog but I am gong to drop in a few things from time to time so you can get to know me a bit better.

• I am so dyslexic that I am beginning to believe that when the Good Lord was putting me together He got my bits all mixed up and somehow managed to connect my retina to my rectum instead of my brain and that’s why everything I see looks like crap. Well, between words in it that shouldn't be there, and words missing that should be there - it really is crap!

• My name is Ita, and it is pronounced I-TA, and NOT E-ta! I actually hate being called Eta. Why? Simple - when I was a kid, Stuttering Johnny, as I use to call him, (but never to his face) always jeered me when I was eating. He use to say, "E-E-E-E-E-ta’s e-e-eating again." Thus,thanks to Stuttering Johnny and a few more like him, my phobis about weight started young! Oh but revenge is sweet, says the writer – even all these years later! And my daughter has just informed me that I should have stood up and told him that there are 10,000 Ita’s up in the Himalayas and that I would send them all down after him if he did't call me my right name! There really is a Tribe of 10,000 Ita’s in the Himalayas by the way. I saw a documentary about them on the TV one night and I fell around the place laughing. I had always reckoned there was only one Ita. My poor husband nearly passed out - it was all too much for him!


• It takes me so long to read the newspaper because of my dyslexia that by the time I’m done the ink has nearly faded off it. Honest, I kid you not!

• I love PMA Books. That’s Positive Mental Attitude by the way. One day on Facebook, I said that I loved PMT books. And no, I was not reading Pre-Menstrual-Tension books! It was my bloody dyslexia again. I didn’t spot it until ages after. It pops up everywhere that dyslexia!
But seriously, I really do love positive books. I use to read True Detective years ago but ended up so afraid when I had to stay in the house on my own at night that I wouldn’t turn the lights off. So I left them down and never took them up again.

• My favourite food is seafood. EVERY FOOD I SEE, that is! And I have joined Weight Watchers so many times I was nicknamed the Shape Shifter and The Accordion. And no, it wasn’t by anyone in Weight Watchers – it’s a story all unto itself, so I’ll fill you in on all that some other time.

• I am absolutely addicted to Grey’s Anatomy. My family know when it’s on that unless someone is dead I am not to be disturbed. And if someone isn’t dead when they disturb me – I have made it very clear that someone will be dead five minutes after they interrupt my viewing!


Ok,that’s it until the next time.

With a smile
Ita x

The Princess & The Frog






It's midterm brake for school children, and the weather’s to be lousy, so were off to see The Princess and The Frog tomorrow. We being, my daughter Nicole, and one of her BFFs, Róisín.
Girls day out, and as a rule, most enjoyable.

I don’t have a lot of details on it. I know it’s Disney and Oprah Winfrey does the voice over for Tiana’s Mother so that was enough to get me buying the tickets.

I admit I am looking forward to it as much as the girls. From the clips we’ve seen it’s obvious the storyline is great and the music beautiful, as always with Disney.

Isn’t it amazing that as a writer you see films as great works of writing first. For those who don’t write they see the graphics or sound effects in the film.

Ideas always seem to dawn on me when I am in the cinema with the girls. I don’t know if it’s that I am not in a position to write or that I am relaxed and watching children’s films that spark the inspiration. This time I am going prepared with a notebook and pen. Even if I only get to scribble down one-liners, it will be worth it.

I will fill you in on how it goes at a later date.

With a smile
Ita x