Backup Backup

You're sitting in front of your computer, feeling the rush of inspiration. The past week, your thoughts have been flowing. You've written over five chapters, and feel great about it.

You move the mouse over the 'save' button one last time, about to turn your computer off. When suddenly, your computer goes blank.

You stare for a moment, not sure what happened. Your heart starts to pound a little harder, but you say to yourself, "Don't panic. I saved it an hour ago. That's just an hour's worth of work." You hit the "on" button and wait for the computer to boot.

It doesn't.

Now you feel your head pounding, your palms getting sweaty. You tell yourself that you'll be able to retrieve everything on the hard drive, but inside, you're just not sure. You try to remember the last time you backed up your computer. Two months ago? You emailed a copy of it to yourself two weeks ago. But, you realize with a sinking heart, that means all five new chapters are gone. Not too mention anything else you had on your computer.

This has never happened to anyone of you...right? Of course not. You're too smart for that.

Well, it's happened to me! I paid $200 to someone one time so they could retrieve information off my hard drive after my computer crashed. Just about a year ago, I emailed my latest draft to a friend so she could look over it--and the next day the computer killed itself. And yet, in spite of these experiences, I consistently neglect to backup except maybe once a month.

There's a solution!!!! My friend Calista on Twitter introduced me to mozy.com, and I'm so excited about it I have to tell you. I signed up last week. This online backup program (not storage, but backup) will upload files you've selected from your computer to a server, as often as you'd like. Once week, three times a day. Then if your computer ever crashes, you just hit the 'restore' button on the website!

Is that cool or what??? Not only that, but the first 2 gigs are FREE. And while they're not paying me to blog about this, if you click on this link and sign up, you and I will both get an extra 1/2 gig of free space when you do your first upload.

I'm way excited about this. I just see it as a total win-win situation. And I won't have to worry again!!!

So, go ahead. Tell me you don't need this program. Tell me you always remember to back up and have never lost ANYTHING. I'm waiting. :)

Edited to add: Getting to the FREE plan is a little hard. First click on the referral link above, and then MANUALLY change the web address to mozy.com/free. Hope that works for you!

Apathy and Query Help

Is it such a bad thing?

When you are passionate, you are emotional. You want things to happen a certain way, and you get upset when they don't. You have drive, but there are consequences.

When you are apathetic, you don't care. Things roll off you. You do whatever people want with a shrug. You're easy going. In fact, life is easier.

What do you think? Is it better?

On the other hand, I've written another query and I'd like to get some eyes on it. Any volunteers? Just email me at tamara at byu dot net, and I'll send it over. Thanks in advance!

Winning the Lottery

Well, okay, I don't have any lottery tickets to give away. Sorry!

But I am going to draw for the winners of my blog contest. RIGHT NOW. I'm super excited!

And the first winner is--holding my breath--

SIMON LARTER!

Ha, ha, that's too funny.

And the second winner is--

EMILY SEVERSON!

Congrats, you guys! I encourage everyone to check out their blogs and let them know how awesome they are.

Emily and Simon, if you could please email me at tamara at byu dot net and let me know if you would rather have a gift certificate or a critique (I'm sure that's what Emily wants), that would be great!

(These names were randomly drawn from random.org. Great website!)

As you can SEE, we didn't get up to 150 followers. I did reach 116, though, and I'm thrilled with that!

I'm not going to keep announcing it, but the 150 followers contest shall be ongoing. Whenever it happens, whoever led that person to my blog will get a prize. If no one led them to my blog, we'll have to try for 200 followers!

My friend Melissa Cunningham, a fellow WiDo author, is doing a contest to reach 100 followers. She's not desperate, though. Just anxious about her blog. :) Check it out here.

Thanks, everyone, for playing! We'll have to do this again soon!

The Gig's Up

I'm on to you.

Sometime over the weekend, one of you replaced my 4-year-old with a demon look-alike.

Did you think I wouldn't notice? No child of mine would poke holes in all the screens with a screw-driver. Or pee in his toy chest instead of going to the bathroom. Or hide under the grocery cart at the store and eat stolen candy.

Ha ha. Very funny. April Fool's is over. I'd like my child back now, please. NOW.

Books and Presentation

Today is the last day of my contest! If you haven't entered, you can do so here.

A few weeks ago I ordered the book Ghost Waves, also published by WiDo Publishing.

I was very anxious to get this book because I wanted to see WiDo's publishing standard. Right off the bat, I was pleased. I opened the package and took the book out and said, "Oh, wow." It's beautifully done. The hard cover binding is durable and aesthetic. I opened the book up and the chapter headings are gorgeous. The font is lovely.

The jacket cover has bright, brilliant colors on it. The pages were evenly cut, no jagged edges and no pages that poked out further than others. All in all, the book was beautiful.

This pleased me. As my book will be released from WiDo in a few months, I wanted the presentation to be awesome. I don't know for sure, but I suspect my book will be released in paperback first, not hardcover. (It's a YA thriller, after all.)

We're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but let's face it, we do. If I open a book at a bookstore and don't like the font, the book goes back. Or if the layout is all squished in the middle, I'm done with it. If the binding looks cheap or like it will fall apart, or the jacket feels like tissue paper, our relationship is over.

And that's without even reading a word.

I never thought about how important the actual book binding was. Selling book is hard enough; make sure the publishing company you choose can put together a pretty presentation.

What makes you put down a book without even reading anything?

First Impressions Blogfest

Here's what we're doing today: A blogfest! Post the first page of your manuscript (any ms) on your blog.

I've never done one before. So I'm excited!

If you want to participate, go here. Please participate! I'd love to read your first pages.

Here is mine, from my YA fantasy novel (this month's project) White As Snow.

Mid 18^th century

Brandenburg-Prussia

The queen allowed the servant girl to help her remove the heavy overcoat. A draft blew its way through the fortress wall, and the queen shivered. Shrugging her shoulders, she jerked her head at the girl, careful not to touch her.. “Bring me some tea.”

“Yes, your majesty.” Keeping her eyes averted, the girl disappeared down a long hall.

The queen paused outside the great hall, listening to the king in audience with a few peasants. Someone complaining about a goat crashing through his fence. She rolled her eyes, not understanding how the king could have patience with such nonsense. The man was too soft for her taste. Were she on the throne, this province would be stronger.

Someone rapped on the exterior door, the sound echoing off the stones to her right. Probably another unhappy citizen. A curl of chestnut brown hair slid down her neck. She pushed it back into place, admiring the sparkle of the large ruby ring on her right hand. Warmth radiated from the stone, tingling as it made its way down her arm. A magical ring, it magnified her Power, allowing her to hear the thoughts of anyone she touched.

The man servant opened the door. She couldn’t make out the words, but the discussion grew heated. The queen made her way to the front entry, nearly bumping into the man servant.

“Your majesty.” His lips quivered in agitation, and he readjusted the ruffles of his blouse. “A man at the door insists on seeing you.”

She arched an eyebrow. Nobody insisted on anything around here. “Send him away.”

He uttered a sigh. “I tried. He said he will cause a scandal and rouse the street rats.”

A trouble maker. Perhaps something interesting. “Follow me.” She strode down the worn carpet, her pointed shoes making a light thump with each step.

Did you post one? Leave a comment so I know!

Oh, and if you haven't entered my contest, do so here. There's definitely still time to get people to follow my blog--we haven't hit 150 yet!

Shortlisted

So, ABNA posted their Quarterfinalists last week. The top 250 YA authors and the top 250 adult authors moved on, after having their excerpt read by top Amazon.com reviewers.

This is a big round. This means that the author's writing, not just the pitch, was good enough to rise above the other 5,000 entrants for that category (10,000 total). Whoever makes this round also gets the entire novel read and reviewed by Publisher's Weekly.

Wow. Big deal. Really cool.

For the previous round, ABNA emailed all the finalists to let them know. My husband didn't get any such email. I went and checked the list anyway, scrolling down through the Hs, looking for Mark Heiner. Nope. Nothing.

I didn't tell him. I knew he didn't know when the dates were, and I didn't want to mention it. Coward. I figured he'd realize in July that the contest must be over and he didn't make it.

Then today, he got an email from ABNA--just saying the quarterfinalists had been announced and the list was available. He got on and checked the list. No Mark Heiner.

But he's smarter than me. He also checked for his pen name, Markus Hawke.

OH MY WORD! HE MADE IT!

He came in and told me this morning and I was shocked. And tickled pink. Let me explain why I was shocked: after he submitted, I read through his excerpt (and thus his entire manuscript) and found a horrifying amount of typos. Big errors, like, "He lifted his bloodstained his bloodstained sword." And "Are we leaving in the morning" he asked? So maybe I just didn't expect him to get in. Bad wife!

But the reviewers overlooked his typos. Rather, they noticed and chose to ignore them. One reviewer said, "This is a strong excerpt in need of some fine tuning and editorial work." Yeah, that! The reviews were overall so positive and wonderful! You can read the full reviews here. You can also download the excerpt and read it on your computer (using the Kindle app you download from Amazon). You can rate and review just as you would any other Amazon product, though we haven't reached the part of the contest where that's necessary yet.

For everyone else that made it, CONGRATULATIONS! I'm totally using this in his queries now.

Oh, and don't forget about my super contest. It's open through Saturday!

P.S. Here is an awesome interview about David J. West, a WiDo author whose book is coming out this month. He's got a contest going on. Check it out!