Hark! Thanksgiving Approaches!

Since I'm not as popular as another Maine writer, Stephen King, I work a "regular job" in addition to the writing. Sometimes, odd things happen, such as on Monday, when I was asked to work 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to get the store set up for the Holiday Sales Season. Normally, I don't see many animals on the road on my way back home at around 10, but for some reason, on the way in....

I swear the skunk either was suicidal or had rabies. I saw the eyes as I started down the hill from my house and started to slow down, unsure as to what I'd seen. Cat? Racoon? It soon became clear, from the black body with the white stripe, that I was seeing a skunk, but it at first looked like he was turning back to where he'd started, so I prepared to slip by him.

Without warning, he turned and raced toward my car, running directly in front of me as I hit the brakes and tried to miss him. Nope! My car, even two days after the hit, still reeks. But that little skunk started my gears turning.....

Normally, I've had several such experiences to keep me on my toes. I usually have more bad luck than good, but this year seems to be different.  Looking at the "Good Times/Bad Times" lists, I only have three really bad things that have happened:

1) In the spring, when I had a speech about writing arranged, it was bitterly cold and most of my friends had to work, so no one came to hear me talk.

2) At the end of our annual anniversary camping trip, Bill lost the transmission in his truck and had to get a new vehicle to get a guarantee that the new transmission would continue to work for more than a year.

3) A hard drive that I'm told lasted twice as long as the product normally does fried out on me, costing me $50 for a new one.

4) I hit Mr. Skunk.

On the "Good" side, however:

1) Almost as soon as I finished the story about Chase and Aloriah, Kelly started whispering about her story. Instead of a long break in which I'm feeling bereft, I immediately went into writing the next book.

2) With a solid thought about what I was looking for in a character, I started looking for models and made a request on Facebook to have some suggestions to look at while I began writing. Less than 24 hours later, I was inundated with a single name: Daniel Sobieray. Rather than let me talk myself out of it, I sent him a message BEFORE putting any photos onto the fledgling fan page for the budding book - and found myself in contact with someone who is not only a gorgeous model, but a brilliant actor and producer who was able to arrange a cover shoot.

3) Through Daniel, I've met several photographers who have introduced me to creativity that I knew existed, but was never able to harness. They, in turn, have "introduced" me to several models. I've found myself in a marvelous group of wonderfully friendly people unlike the types I knew in high school and college who were cuter than the average person. They've made Kyle and Chase even more honest personalities in my mind, as these men I've been meeting this year are very much like my handsome Benton men - and they've helped me to form Stefan into a more complete character.

Also, because of the positive experience with Daniel, I've spoken with the first model to have graced my fan pages attached to a character. He has also begun to suggest other people whose pages I should like, and a European model/photographer group is beginning to form.

4) Whenever I've run into mischief with the writing process this year, I've had people who are happy to answer questions. Whether I'm having a learning issue with a new program or technical difficulties needing the geek squad, I ask a few questions and I have someone stepping in with the answer I need.

5) As this influx of work-related support has been going on, long lost relatives have been appearing on Facebook, finding me through other relatives I'd already friended. The influx of family members has also provided me an emotional support net for those times when I start to doubt myself.

And all of this doesn't even touch the tip of the iceburg when it comes to the sudden influx of visitors to all the sites I put in place as marketing tools when writing "The Tiger's Cub"....

My Thanksgiving is starting early this year, as I am most thankful for the year so far. I have been blessed by all that I hold holy and am most grateful for all the gifts that have come my way.

I only hope that all of those I've mentioned above, who have proven to be such blessings in my life, are as blessed as I have been......

Starting to wonder if I'm still being tested.....

My first book was a test of my patience with technology. I started out writing it in 1994 on a Tandy HX1000, which had 256 mb of memory. Each time I sat down to write, I had to pull out a floppy disc, put it into the computer, and then make sure to save when I was done. According to the computer, I was writing in a document file. What I wasn't told is that the document file was only ever going to be able to be opened by a Tandy HX1000 computer.

I didn't know that last point until the Tandy suddenly made an odd noise, a puff of smoke came out of the back, and the computer shut down, never to start again.

A friend, who had just purchased a new computer, had a Compaq that he'd retired in his clo.set. There was nothing technically WRONG with the Compaq, he had just opted to go for bigger, better, faster, I was told. Once again, it was what I WASN'T told that came back to bite me in the tush.....
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While I love my friend dearly, he's a graduate of M.I.T, and has his own way of doing things. For instance, he doesn't do games on computers, so he had removed some programs that he thought only had to do with gaming. Unfortunately, there are some programs that are tied together, so when he removed the games from his computer to save memory space, there were a couple of programs that were affected - and since I couldn't recover the document file from the floppy disc I'd been using with the Tandy, I had to start writing "Night of the Tiger" all over again. Because of my experience with the Tandy, I not only saved my work on the computer itself, but I was saving to a floppy disc.

I didn't know about Rich Text Format, so I was still saving as a doc file. Stupid human. The Universe laughs at such foolishness!

The Compaq's issue with the missing files eventually became my issue, as the programs started to not work properly. Instead of saving my documents as words, my story started to have odd characters thrown in, like long sections of alien symbols instead of the words I had typed. I hadn't been saving to a floppy disc or a cd, so by the time I thought about that, the files I saved were corrupted....

My husband came to the rescue by buying me an HP desktop computer base. Unfotunately, the problems with the Compaq programs meant that I had to start from scratch again on my story. I had also managed to injure myself, so I was starting this process again at a time that I was on heavy duty pain medications.

I still read through the first book and get frustrated at the computer programs that caused so many issues, especially since some of the finer writing on the story got "eaten" by computer programs....

By the time I started work on "The Tiger's Cub", I had learned a lot about computers and how to save files so that they can be transferred from one computer to another without loss of any part of the work. My work is now saved in both a document file and a rich text format, allowing it to be transferred easily between computers. The new "learning curve" for the second book involved working with models and making ones own cover for a book when the publisher doesn't have an art director to make the cover for me. The fact that the cover was fouled when it got to the publisher frustrated me - and still does when I look at some of the covers online that involve a heavy black streak in my model's hair that wasn't there on the art piece the publisher finally agreed to use.

So, I launch into book three with all this education in place. I'm saving the files religiously, both on the computer and on a thumb drive, since floppy discs are technology of the past.  I have a cover whose art work has already started to get rave reviews. I have the book formatted to the correct size for me to be able to see what it will look right after it's printed. I'm working very hard to get it to look just the way I wish for it to before it gets loaded to the printer's web site for the first "test print"....

And each time I open the file I've been so religiously saving, the formatting has somehow changed again so that I have to start again each time.....

I now work with technical savvy people. I can ask what's going on and how to stop it from happening, but I don't like what I'm hearing....

It seems that this time, the technical difficulty is coming from the fact that I still have Microsoft Works, which is formatted to work with Windows XP, on my laptop. Although it was supposed to continue to work with Windows 7 when I bought my Dell laptop, it's had to be uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of times over the years to keep it working properly. The problem is that Microsoft no longer supports this program, and therefore, more recent updates to the Windows 7 operating system means that, even if I uninstall and reinstall again, there won't be any updates coming in to correct the issues it seems to currently be having.

*giving Bill Gates the evil eye, as I've already had to buy all kinds of "extras" over the past year to compensate for Microsoft deciding to no longer support Windows XP or any of the related programs*

Before we get back to a situation in which I have to start over on a story that is just one month from release, I'm looking at the current programs used for editing the story. Do I choose Microsoft's Office 365, which has a yearly fee attached? Do I go with Microsoft Publisher instead, even though I know nothing about it? Do I get the 2013 Works program that was made to work better with Windows 7 and may be just enough to keep me going for a couple more years, when the Dell laptop will probably need to be replaced because parts are already starting to wear out?

Sounds like a job for the Techno-geeks at Staples, who are probably ready to string me up somewhere in the back room for asking them so many questions already.


Addendum October 21: Less of a problem than I anticipated, considering past experience. It's a simple matter. New hard drive. Extra gigs of memory. It will be here on Monday. Meantime, I've installed the needed programs in the desktop and am continuing on.  I was also told that my six year old laptop should have done this to me three years ago. I feel better now. 

I kept it alive longer than it should have lived. It was meant to die. *smile*

A Word from Our Sponsor......

Someone asked me yesterday about what I do in my "spare time". Um, yeah. About that......

"Spare time" doesn't exist at this time of year for me.  There are the normal tasks around the house, such as putting up a plastic barrier around the edge of the foundation before snow flies, as I live in an ancient farm house that has sincere leakage issues where the wood is rotting at the top of the cement. There's the putting up of any Halloween decorations that I want to put out. There's deciding what I'm going to do for a costume, as my husband has a co-worker that has a marvelous Halloween bash every year.

And, this year, there's the final tasks for releasing another new book.

The reviewers are reading the book and one has already given me her review.

The grammar/spell check has been run and I need to go through the second edit to confirm that the "corrections" haven't ruined the tale.

The formatting for the PDF file that goes to the printer is being done.

And we have the full-on cover that needs to be printed in glossy and matte formats so I can decide which to ask the publisher to request from the printer. This will also be my chance to note if the art director has to correct anything before the printer gets a chance at this cover.....

Here is the official front-and-back with everything except the bar code for "A Wild Tiger's Heart":

Oddly enough, when I posted this cover to the fan page on  Facebook, my fan base for the new book suddenly had an increase of 18 people - none of whom are on my friends list. I'm guessing either Daniel Sobieray or Patrice Garza (or maybe both) might have people who were on the fan list and shared. I personally like this cover better than anything I've ever had in the past, and I fully plan on taking advantage of Northern Bard Publications offer to do this kind of cover for a re-release and possible boxed set for the series......

Thank you for all of your feedback, whether here, in my private emails, or on Facebook. I'm really enjoying this little "give-and-take" with this release, and hope that some of the writers who are following this blog will consider having work looked at by NBP. I'm more relaxed with this release than I have been in a long time, and am extremely happy with the cover.

In my best Gomer Pyle voice: "Surprise, surprise, surprise"

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away......

Oh, wait. That one's been used....

About two and one-half decades ago, I wrote a short story to prove to my mother-in-law that I could make money from my writing. In order to hide the fact that my male character was at least partially based on my sister-in-law's fiance (at the time), I described Kyle Benton as having long, dark hair and a full beard with heavenly green eyes.  I had no internet access in 1989, so the thought of actually locating someone to portray Kyle on a fan site never even crossed my mind.

Fast forward to 2008, when "Night of the Tiger", which had been online as an ebook for almost a decade, was being released as a paperback.  Looking for new ways to market such things, I started looking at fan pages and such, but multiple searches for a model who looked like Kyle kept bringing up those ever-popular pages I call "pink bunny slippers", as they're cute, but have absolutely nothing to do with what I searched for.  It wasn't until I was looking for a picture of a model for the next book that I came across this photo of Greek model Theo Theodoridis:

I almost fell off of my seat, as this is the Kyle I was picturing with his beard trimmed back a bit. But then, this handsome man posted one yesterday that seriously made me choke on the coffee I had just sipped.  THIS is the handsome devil of a man that I have been picturing in my mind since 1989 as the truck driver who works his way into the life of a little Amer-asian exotic dancer, a young woman who has been hiding in plain sight for 7 long years....

All I could think yesterday was that, somehow, from inside the cob web infested darkness at the back of my brain, my little former exotic dancer managed to snap a photo of her truck driver and posted it on the internet for me...

I understand that people have been telling me for years now that God, or Allah, or Yahweh, or He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named can sometimes do strange things to show us that we're on the right path, but this is getting a little ridiculous! The Universe seems to be having fun with me this year, first slamming me with an all-too-perfect model/actor for the part of Stefan Savoldi, then showing me these wonderful new photos of Theo that look more like Kyle than anything I've been able to find online so far.

Maybe I should ask for that new model for Chase, since Dylan hasn't been posting new photos?

Addendum 10/19/14: Theo posted another photo this week that presented me with the whiney voice of my character fussing because it was another photo that I was trying to swear looked like Kyle from his days as a trucker.

"But I'm computer illiterate and never had a laptop on the road!" Kyle whines in my head, even though, in his current short haired and clean shaven state, he DOES have a laptop in his office that he uses to keep track of his family as they travel in Europe.  Too bad, Kyle!  I still think this photo looks like your lovely wife snuck up on you in the early days of your relationship and snapped a photo of you......

And thank you, Theo, for the posts on Facebook that I'm "creatively borrowing". So good to see you on a regular basis instead of just hearing gossip and rumor about how you're doing.  *grin*

Houston, We Have A Problem

Since I've been updating you on the progress on the newest creation....

One more chapter to edit and then it starts to get interesting. Reviewers will get the tale next, acting sort of like "guest editors". Their thoughts on the book may or may not get used anywhere (at the publisher's discretion), but since they're trusted friends who did this on at least one other book ....

Yeah. They know me. They know if they point out something that's off, it will be fixed before it goes to the publisher. I like having friends like that.

Only problem is that the last two books were around 77,000 words each.

"A Wild Tiger's Heart" is currently at 106,000 words, and as I've made corrections, it's been growing. (Final count as of editing completion on 10/8/2014: 108,563)

Of course, I keep telling myself that the word count also includes the stuff that isn't really part of the story.

There's the copyright stuff already added
And the bit about it being a work of fiction
A dedication
Thank yous to those who helped
A preface that reintroduces the characters from the other books, just in case the reader didn't read the first two

All that only takes up 1000 words.

Let's see what the critics think before I start to worry about what to cut out. Perhaps it just needed a bit more story for Kelly and Stefan. They are a little older than the other two couples I've written about..

So, to quote all those old shows I grew up watching, "The moral of this story is...:"

If you have a network of people you can trust to give you the truth, not matter how much it may hurt, trust them with your baby. Sometimes you can be surprised. Sometimes they tell you that you did good....

*sigh*

Back to that last chapter, much as I always hate to see the stories end. It's time to finish my baby and send it off to see what others think before the publisher, who almost has the whole cover ready except for the depth of the spine for the title there, gets it.