And a year later...

Well here it is... a year since I 'lost' my books to a computer error. And the best explanation the computer experts could come up with was this... my computer copied "blank" pages to the cloud and my thumb drive. Thus all my books were erased except for some very rough copies on an old thumb drive.

I fully anticipated working like a crazy person and meeting a self-imposed 13-day deadline to retrieve those books. And I tried. I seriously tried. But almost seven days of little to no sleep, making mistakes, creating problems, and struggling - and I was done. What happens when year's of work is erased? First the tears - I told you about those. Heavy sigh. Second was the desperation. This wasn't pretty. And the third and final'ish step? The knowledge I was going to have to sit and re-do it all.

It was not going to happen in 13-days. It wasn't going to happen in 3 months. It was starting over in many respects on three books. After seven months with these three books I was ready to print them, put them in a shredder, and move on with my life. If the cover artist hadn't already done the work, a publisher wasn't pushing me to stick with these books, (and maybe a bit of "I'm going to finish these damn books if it kills me!")? I'd probably have ditched. I went through a month of pure hate for them. I put them away and didn't even look at them.

That month of pure abject misery and dislike helped fuel me to rough out four new books, polish a few other books, review my life in general, and it had me considering investing in a winery for the discounts.

And as the days went by slowly, the months quickly, I realized as I wrote, reviewed and revised - I was almost a year in. That became my new deadline. They were supposed to leave the nest on May 30th, 2018. My new deadline became May 29th, 2019.

I hit the new deadline. Bye, bye book birdies.

There is a certain amount of fear publishing something that has taxed and exacerbated you. That you've put a bit of your own heart and soul into. That you are not sure after so long if they are good, meh, or suck. And as my finger hovered over the button to send the books off? I couldn't push it. I cried. I chewed my lip. I chewed my fingernails. It almost seemed too good to be happening and too scary to let it happen. My daughter looked at me over her homework. "Just do it momma!"

And with one last big breath I hit the button and off they went. Out into the nether world of electronic communication to be published or sent back. And someone said, "okay." So there they sit now with the dear readers.

Is there a moral to this story? Life gives you lemons. Throw those suckers in the trash, go get yourself some grapes, and make wine. Because if nothing else? You have wine. Waaaaaay better than lemonade. So step four - enjoy the fruits of your labor. Cheers.