A Lament and a Prayer

Today, I finished my book.  Wrote over 3000 words.  Yesterday over 2000.    That's 30 pages or so. 

I busted my ass.  Played romantic, sappy music for the wedding scene.  Sighed, got a tear in my eye, and was thrilled with the way it turned out. 

I yelled downstairs to my husband that I. Had. Finished.  And to break out the celebratory beer, because I would be right down to have a toast. 

Then I clicked the wrong button and deleted everything I'd done in the last two days.

Yes. 

I wept, I screamed, I knashed my teeth.  I cursed, I drank, I locked myself in my office and pounded my head against my desk.

I searched the internet, emailed friends, called PCWebdoc.com (awesome service).  To no avail.  The file was GONE.

Gone.  As if it never existed.  As if I hadn't opened my veins on paper.

I prayed.  Made promises to God.  And emailed the people at Dropbox, the online backup service I used that was supposed to have saved all files, but didn't appear to have anything since Wednesday.

I am praying, hoping, oh my GOD, praying they have my file and it's somehow not showing. 

Because otherwise, I have to start all over.  All the emotions, the words, the lovely beautiful wedding scene, I will have to rewrite.  And hope can find the magic.

I promise you this.  If Dropbox lets me down, I will tweet and FB and blog to everyone - never use that service.  Because I foolishly put my trust in it. 

I should have simply inserted a memory stick into my computer and backed up that way.  Then I'd be able to enjoy this three day weekend.  I'd be DONE. 

Pray for me.  Please.

Friday and - hopefully - THE END!!!

Today is THE day that I will finish writing The Millionaire Cowboy's Secret for Harlequin Romantic Suspense.  Yay - Happy dancing here!  I'll use the three day weekend to re-read it, fix any problems (hopefully) and then on Tuesday, I'll email it off to my editor. 

 

I'm having problems all of a sudden with Blogger and it won't let me put up any pictures.  I had taken some photos of the Crepe Myrtles blooming in my backyard, and the Texas Sage in all its purple flowered glory, but Blogger won't accept any photos.  Not sure why and I don't have time to deal with it.

 

My editor just let me know she approved my next Pack book for Harlequin Nocturne.  It's called The Broken Wolf (they always let me keep my titles ).  I've got to start that right away because it's due 12-1 and there will probably be revisions on The Millionaire Cowboy.  I also have two more Precious Gem backlist books I need to put up as ebooks - this month alone Want You Back and Desert Fire have each sold over 600 copies!  Each!  So I'm losing significant income by not putting the other two up. 

 

I also need to put the Magic backlist books up on Kobo.  Another time consuming thing that I don't have time for because of deadlines.

 

And of course there is the YA.  This time I won't let that one slide, I promise myself.

 

I have also been reading when I can.  I just finished an interesting YA called The Raft by S.A. Bodeen.  Before that, I finished Pukka, The Pup after Merle by Ted Kerasote, and one of Kristin Higgans backlist books that I'd somehow missed.  I'm now reading Shadown Lake by Lisa Kleypas and have that NYT Bestseller Gone Girl next up on the TBR list, along with a YA called Easy (a self published book that hit the NYT and I want to read it to see why ). 

 

Anyway, I've procrastinated long enouogh.  Got to get to work so I can finally put my two star-crossed lovers together. 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration

It's midweek and yesterday when I was taking a break from the grueling rush to finish my next Harlequin Romantic Suspense book, I read my "Work Out Horoscope"  It made me laugh because it was so startlingly accurate.  To paraphrase " Taurus, you're not a big fan of movement - any movement.  To you, the best exercise is reclining on a chaise lounge chair on the beach with an umbrella drink."  Yep.  That's me.  It went on to say "Hire a personal trainer.  That's the only way you'll ever get motivated."

So true.  In part.  Because I DID hire a personal trainer - several of them, in fact.  I worked out with one off and on for almost three years.  Now I know what I have to do and can no longer afford to shell out that kind of money (No more day job), and yep - I'm not nearly as faithful to my workouts.

But I did find another source of motivation.  My pedometer.  $22 at Amazon.  Made my Omron.  Love that thing.  Love it, love it, love it. 

My goal  is 10,000 steps a day.  I really have to push myself to make it.  I walk 1,000 steps right after breakfast (circling the pool), 1,000 at lunch, and 1,000 after dinner.  Sometimes I bump it up to 1500.  Adventurous, that's me.  When I do make 10,000, I'm SO happy.  Ridiculously happy.

Oh, and I'm almost done the book.  I'm hoping to finish by Friday so I can read it over the weekend and tweak it.  My lovely editor just let me know that my proposal for the next Pack Harlequin Nocturne looks like a go, so I'll have to slide right into that.

But... but... I have another book I want to write.  A YA (Young Adult).  I have the concept and all.  Finally.  So I'm going to try and Fast Draft the Nocturne AND the YA.  We'll see.  I've been promising my agent for YEARS now that I would send her something else to sell beside my catergory novels.  She started out representing me on Single Titles, and she's really good.  So I hope to get this YA book secretly written by the end of the year. 

Oh M Gee!  I said it out loud.  There.  A new goal. 

Better get back to it. 

Best Weekend!

This weekend, we went to our camper at the lake.  Confession time - I really didn't want to go.  My book is due on 9-1 and I worried I wouldn't write like I needed too.  I also worried I would write, and would be miserable because I was trapped working when I was at the lake and should be having fun!
I also wasn't looking forward to the awful August heat.

It turned out I had a wonderful weekend!  It was cloudy, which kept the heat in the low 90's.  Still hot, but not baking like it normally is in August.

We didn't take the boat out (the water in our cove was kind of low), and on Friday I wrote almost 1000 words.  We drove to one of the marinas and feasted on catfish for dinner.   When we got back to the camper, we sat outside in the fading light and listened to the lake sounds. 

Saturday we slept in (til 7:30), drank coffee outside, and I wrote 2000 words.  Again it was cloudy, and not too bad temperature wise.  I was reminded why I love the lake place.  I also realized that soon it will be my favorite time of the year - fall!  Camping is better in the fall.  Waaaay better. 

So home again, not behind, I'm in the final stretch of this book.  It's going well.  I'll try to check in once in awhile here, but if I don't, you know what I'm doing! 

Sorry, it's nearly been a week since I posted.  Life's been crazy lately - of course it always is around deadline crunch time.  My book is due in two weeks and I have 20,000 words to write (100 pages).  I need to write 2,000 words a day (10 pages), so I'm working on that now. 

And let me tell you, it's not easy.

The last couple of days have been beautiful, for Texas.  We had rain and lower temps (it only got to 90 on Sunday).  It's been 68 twice when I got up!  That's amazing for August and it gives me hope for a fall.  Though knowing Texas weather, we aren't done with the heat yet.  Sigh.  I'm ready for fall.

Anyway, I've been working like crazy.  Oh, but the free promotion I did for Want You Back resulted in 16,764 downloads.  Hopefully, the people who read it will like it and come back for some of my other books!  Keeping my fingers crossed.

Free!

For a limited time - today until 8-18 (at 12:00 am, so really 8-17), one of my back list ebooks goes Free on Amazon.com. 

http://www.amazon.com/Want-You-Back-ebook/dp/B0081T92OM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1344961919&sr=1-1&keywords=Want+You+Back+by+Karen+Whiddon

Mid-Week

I've been a busy worker bee, trying to get The Millionaire Cowboy's Secret done in time for its new deadline (9-1).  So I've been doing that, plus I'm taking a day off tomorrow to do something with my mom, then it's back to work for me.

Meanwhile, I've gotten some new covers designed by the wonderful Travis at www.probookcovers.com 

So far he's redesigned Powerful Magic and Lone Star Magic.  Here's the new Powerful Magic

And the new Lone Star Magic

Beautiful, aren't they?  You can buy them at Amazon.com or Barnesand noble.com

So I came home from my mini-vacation in San Antonio to an awful, awful heat.

Made me want a Margarita like I had on the Riverwalk.

That was probably the best margarita I've ever had - huge and tasty. 

We saw a  lot of beautiful sights while we were gone - but it was so hot.  We realized that in the past, we've gone to San Antonio in the spring, when the weather is a bit more temperate.

 And above is the outside of the best restaurant on the river, Boudro's.  We go there every single time we go to San Antonio.

Here is the second oldest church in the United States, at least according to our boat tour guide.  It's beautiful.  Unfortunately, it's locked and you don't get to see the inside.  We tried. :(

 The Riverwalk water was so clear, we could see the fish in the bottom.

And I love the size of the massive Cedar trees. 

And here's a shot of me hanging out in the shade.

And here is the building that looks one dimensional.  Cool, isn't it?

While on the boat tour, we saw an owl in a tree.  That was one of the most awesome moments of the trip for me.

Here is my wonderful husband and me at Boudro's, our favorite restaurant (did I mention that?)

Some birds ourside one of the places we visited for a drink (and sat on the balcony)

And yet another random shot of moi