I am sitting at the computer now, just thanking Jesus, and really just saying over and over again, how very thankful I am. I was about to have one of the biggest personal breakdowns I have ever had, but to most people, my little fit would have seemed to pale by any comparison. I am a writer. I write. I am in the middle of writing my first murder novel when today, after writing over 50 pages of over 300 words per page, (let's do the math) about 15,000 words, when out of the blue the computer decided NOT to save the words to the file. WHAT? It was GONE. Just GONE.
I use Word, so I checked the three (yes 3) separate places where I always save my work. I tend to save every 15 minutes or so, and I thought I had. I never don't do that. I am, if nothing else, consistent. I was 100%, absolutely sure, that I had in fact saved my work, and it was GONE. Talk about hitting the lowest key possible. I was just really so very upset not only with myself but with the machine I was using, with the software, and with life in general. I was even about to yell at my dog who, for some damn reason, wouldn't stop woofing under her breath at whoever it was outside, someone I personally could have throttled if I was downstairs. I was not. Again, thank you, Jesus.
I decided today, to get back into the mix of writing "Murder Book". It needs to be done, but for about a month I have not felt it. I have not been in the right frame of mind. I didn't have the same urgency writing this book, as I did when I wrote "Of Kilted Pleasure", but I can at least say that with this book, while writing "Murder Book" I am taking my time to be sure I don't misspell anything, and I'm double checking all historical points, places, names, dates, etc. I'm trying to do more of my own due diligence now before it is published, and that makes a great difference.
Anyway, I'm over here writing, and I wrote Chapters 9, 10, and 11 and I was just about to write Chapter 12 when the computer just decided to blank out and keep my words. I have NO IDEA what happened. I literally couldn't find it anywhere. I was just livid. I checked by date to see if I had saved it by another name; which wouldn't make sense, but you just never know. Stranger things, right? I had not. It just wasn't there. It wasn't on the flash drive, it wasn't on the desktop, it wasn't in Documents. I don't know what the hell happened to it.
I don't remember what I did, or where I went to look for it, but in Word itself I somehow managed to find a document that looked similar, a ghost-like copy, and I pulled it up. It was my document. I decided to CTRL+A and selected the entire document, then I pasted it to a new document, renamed it, and saved it. Then I saved it over the other document that I could find, the one I wrote a month ago, the one I thought was using to write the last several chapters. This darn thing is more than saved now. It is not going anywhere!
Murder Book is taking on legs of its own really. I'm finding myself branching out and doing a bit of the fluff and stuff now, rather than writing it and then doing the fleshing of it. Speaking of fleshing. Damn, I am actually creating a thread that I had no idea I would be writing. It's a little macabre but it goes along with the content and intent of the book itself. It's a side-line murder, one that has nothing to do with the others, but it gives the characters something to investigate, and it gives the readers an insight into the deviant mind of a killer who isn't part of the main group the main characters are focused on; so it's a thorn in the side, but viable. I love it.
I decided to write three chapters today, and another three, maybe four tomorrow. I'll write the same on Monday, as it is a holiday, and then if I feel like it, I'll carry it over to Tuesday. Let's see, I'm on 12 now, so that'll be 15 tomorrow, 18 on Monday, and maybe 21-22 by Tuesday. At this rate, the book should be finished by the end of June or around the first weekend of July. I can't have it published yet, so it's not that big of a deal really. The thing is, as soon as I get it done I'll begin to tweak it, and then go over it a dozen times to be sure I didn't miss anything. By the time I do get it published, I'll have written the sequel to the romance novel, and I'll be in the middle of writing Pinball, a book that just sort of came to me in the middle of the night. I have to put it into its place one day.
Chapters 9, 10, and 11 of Murder Book were fairly easy to write. I've not gone into much detail really, and that's because I typically write then I fluff and stuff. I am outlining, and getting things set up, but again, I seem to be adding more to each chapter now rather than waiting to do so later. I think the book could end up being closer to 400 pages; who knows. I have to introduce Nick Posh and set up the series, so this book may be slightly thicker than the ones to follow. The Nick Posh books will be written on a somewhat regular basis so I can have one book or maybe two out each year. That's the goal. It won't be hard to do once I get all the other books out of the way.
I have the trilogy of the romance books, "Of Kilted Pleasure", "Of Kilted Love" and "Of Kilted Memories", then there's "Pinball" which I think will end up being the sequel to "Murder Book" actually, and there is a third that I'm already formulating in my skull -- and then, there's "Stollen" and "1211", and they have nothing to do with either series. Wow. I have some work to do. I need to get off this computer before I lose it. I came so close...so close. Say goodnight....goodnight.
Photo Credit: Shanon Fagan
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