I usually write to Word, then cut-n-paste to Blogger. Otherwise Murphy comes to visit.

I was really lucky. It was probably four hours off and on to make my Lily Dale post. I just left the computer up. I hadn't put pictures on Flicker yet or anything when I started. I held my breath that I wouldn't have to start again. Of course, after reading your problems I decided not to try draft mode. I've tried Metro's way before. The formatting isn't always exactly the same but at least you could post again.

CM and squirl, yea, I get the garbage in the text whether I publish directly from Word or whether I cut and paste. When I have time to go through and cut out the garbage word by word, I'll publish again. I'm starting to think there really isn't such an animal as "blogger help." I write to them every day, 5 or 6 days now.

oh, and squirl, when my "save as draft" stopped working, 4 or 5 partial stories that I had previously saved as drafts also just disappeared.

Good luck with the blogger staff reply. I had a question a little while ago and they only took a couple days to get back to me. So that must mean they'll get to you soon...right?

Susie, just make sure you back up your monthly archives!

I'm so sorry blogger is being a hogger of your posts. Thats just not very nice. Have you talked to Kristine? She's a blogger wiz!

Hope Blogger comes thru for you cuz I am missing your nice long posts!

Doggone!
I look forward to your posts.
Hope this gets resolved soon...

When I have more than a sentence or two, I'll type it in Notepad first, then copy and paste. No formatting, but the post doesn't get lost -- like mrtl said.

Susie, don't let a little thing like Blogger stop you from visiting the Blogworld! ;)

Susie, I just use the Microsoft Word default font, write my piece, then copy it and plunk it right into the blogger compose window and it comes out perfect.

I hope it works for you because what would blogworld be without you!

Blogger sucks!
I'm going dot com baby!

bente, thank you for that encouragement. I was thinking maybe they don't even exist!

bucky, thanks for the reminder; things are going very wacky. I tried the email thing; no luck yet, just nothing happened, if I'm doing it right.

lawbrat, no I haven't; but I will try to email her later, good idea.

weetzie, thanks!

mrtl, I was just about to start asking people, do you have something better? And still free? Blogger has been so easy for a techno-dunce like me; until now, when it's pretty much useless for what I most like to use it for.

thanks, sierrabella, before I started writing my little blog stories, I'd just annoy friends by emailing them out. I'll put you on the list if I have to resort to that again :)

CK, I don't know what notepad is, even though I probably have it here somewhere. Y'all don't know how techno-stupid I am.

MB, I just real-quick tried that, on my dummy blog, and I still get all the garbage, the weird symbols. ????

that's just awful and weird!

oh, yeah, blogger help....someone less available than my last boyfriend. sheesh.

I was going to suggest Notepad too (like mrtl). I've used it to compose before if Blogger is giving me grief, and it doesn't seem to do weird formatting stuff. Of course, as mrtl pointed out, you can't do any formatting that you WANT to do either, but it might keep you from withdrawal :)

ok, the geek is coming out of the closet...as many of you know, I'm opera-gal by night, and web developer by day - very recently, I helped http://www.waiterrant.net Waiter Rant move from Blogger to his own URL.
Blogger, Haloscan, and all these other freebies are rife with problems for one major reason: they are free. No company is going to pay people to serve as tech support when they have no income stream.
having vented, now I'll get a little geeky. Many of the applications (and that is what they are - applications, software, whatever term you want to use) used to blog are written in PHP. PHP is a beautiful thing - it stores everything in neat little data packets and serves it up whenever you want it.
Except when the data server is overloaded, that data file is corrupt, or any other number of reasons. INCLUDING having to play nice with third-party code/scripts and apps like Flickr (which I think is evil) and that damn Technorati include script.
One thing I have noticed about Blogger is that Sunday afternoon/eveing is the WORST time to post. I don't anymore, as I can just imagine those pooor hamsters in their treadmill, trying to make the hard drive in the db server spin faster.
The other bug that some of you are getting with regards to odd characters, wierd formatting, not saving drafts...ESPECIALLY if you are pasting from Word is that PHP apps and their databases like their data squeaky-clean. So yes, Notepad is the world's text-washing machine.
As for Bloggers piece-o-crap BETA Microsoft Word plugin, the folks at Blogger must have caught the Microsoft disease, cause they released an app when its not yet ready for prime-time.
What's Opera Doc is SO moving to WordPress when I get some free time. Thanks for letting me borrow the bandwidth Susie - and if you email me, I'll teach you how to use Notepad. :)

I will patiently await your return and hope that everything works out soon.

I don't know if it was just a coincidence or what, but when I was having problems, I republished my entire blog (not just one post, not just the index) and everything was fine.


Of course, I got that stupid-assed "flag if objectionable" button along with the republishing, but there you have it.

Susie, I was going to tell you how to get to Notepad but it looks like Opera beat me to it. I want you to be able to stay blogging. However, if you feel the need to e-mail stories in the meantime, you have my e-mail address. :-)

*DT starting* If all else fails, email, please! sbhhe@juno.com *DT abating*

I've republished lots. And emptied my cache.

I found notepad. I copied my story from Word to notepad. I cut and pasted it again, to the dummy blog. It looked fine in "compose" and in "edit html" and even in "preview." It wasn't. Still the crappy symbols everywhere when I published it. It's long. When I can I'll retype it, then just publish it and correct.

Thanks, everyone, for trying to help.

Dang girl, I'll be missing ya.

not that this helps, but when i got a second blog, mine started doing weird messed up things too. i would sign in with one and get the other. it's so aggravating.i really hope that things get worked out soon.i already took a little peek regarding your prob and found nothing, but www.bloggerforum.com is pretty good with tech help. sorry susie :(

sfg, thank you. I miss blogging, too, except I keep finding "shorties" to pop up there. I have some stories I'd like to tell, too, though.

kitty, you're the best.

blogaholic, thanks, I just stumbled in there yesterday. When I get time, maybe I'll post my problem and see if anyone else has had it.

Nikki, still waiting for the doorbell ;) But you know what, I would gladly lose bloggability just to have kitty write a funny comment just to know that you smiled at something here :) I am smiling back!