The Elegant Man

Jayson Hicks

"The boor covers himself,

the rich man or the fool adorns himself,

and the elegant man gets dressed."

- Honore de Balzac

The Wild Wild West

Photo from Miss Oakley's Wiki-biography

"Refuse to behave." - Jaid Black

WTF?

"Open Book" by Beach Bum Chix

 

I am an ardent, voracious reader - always have been, always will be. I absolutely, unabashedly LOVE the printed word. And Ebooks? Oh lordy me my!!! When I discovered Ebooks, way back in the day, I knew that I had hit the mother lode. The ability to download literally thousands of books, of any and all genres, was and continues to be a personal wet dream come true. Ebooks gave birth to the latest era of my favorite genre - Erotica. Epublishing allows authors to bypass the stringent Harlequin rules and pompous 'big box' publishing companies and bring women's naughty kinky fantasies to the masses - hallelujah! Ebooks and Epublishing were the inspiration and vehicles that got me to this point - yeah, yay! But lately I've been noticing a disturbing trend...

 

Earlier today, I purchased an Ebook for $7 - a fair price. But when I downloaded and opened it I saw that it was only 55 pages long - what the fuck?! I realize that not all writers have 300+ worth of pages in them, but 55 pages for $7? Oh hell no. I find, more and more, Epublishing companies are pulling this crap - selling 75 pages for 150+ pages prices. 55 pages to develop a full, nuanced, page turning novel, that has you salivating for more? - not possible. I don't like it. I think that it's cheating the reader - I certainly feel cheated! The only way to deal with this is to: pay attention to the word count in the book's description before I buy and hope that if enough of us loyal readers refuse to buy such books, authors and the companies who publish them will get the message.

 

Okay, rant finished. I feel so much better ;-}

 

'Til we meet again,

 

Temple

We Give Thanks

"Sleepy Hollow" by Carl Christensen

"Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them,

is the true measure of our Thanksgiving."

- W.T. Purkiser

 

! Happy Thanksgiving !

 

 'Til we meet again,

 

Temple

It's Official...

Photo: Something Borrowed

''

"I never leave home without my 380s...

And how many times have my babies saved your cranky ass?

Don't worry, I won't tell your professor that you felt me up."

- Vessna, The Good Professor

 

Earlier today, I signed on the dotted line and took my publishing contract to the post office. I am now an officially contracted author! Now all I've got to do is finish my ms - GULP.

 

'Til we meet again,

 

Temple

 

 

Like a Ninja!

"I always had this dream of being one of those ninjas

that hops tree to tree." - Milla Jovovich

 

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my precious flashdrive dying an untimely death - EEK! It housed my entire ms (manuscript), related research and notes, and none of it was backed up - EEK EEK! To the internets!...Thank Google, I found an online service whose sole reason for being is to save the asses of people like me (I take some consolation in that my ass is pretty fine, according to the hubby ;-} I did my research - read a gazillion independent customer reviews - and decided to take a $250 chance - best $250 I've ever spent, not including on shoes.

 

On Friday they @mailed me and told me that they had retrieved all of my files - YIPPEE! On Monday a new flashdrive (that I had purchased and sent to them, along with my original broken flashdrive), with my retrieved files on it,  was sitting in my mailbox - Hip Hop Hooray! So you know that I have to share all of their contact info - with my highest recommendation. So if you ever find yourself in a 'my flashdrive has died on me' situation, contact the guys and gals at Flash Drive Pros. Like a Ninja indeed!

 

Oh, and I am now the back-up-your-files QUEEN! Lesson learned...

 

'Til we meet again,

 

Temple

Connect

"The thing that we are trying to do at facebook,

is just to help people connect..." - Mark Zuckerberg

 

I just created my Facebook page. Come and find me ;-}

 

'Til we meet again,

 

Temple

Milestone(s)

Photo: AggaPhoto

"[Milestone] it reassures travellers that the proper path is being followed."

- Wikipedia

I'm still awaiting the verdict, on whether or not my precious flash drive can be retrieved (fingers and toes crossed). Still there's a silver lining. One week before 'the disaster' I @mailed my entire wip (7 chapters) to myself - yea me. So turns out that I have NOT lost all 70+ pages of my wip, only the 15 pages that I had written during that week. Then I realized that I had printed 10 pages of my new 'stuff.' So, in the end I only lost about 5 pages. But there's is one tiny rub, the 5 pages I did lose where pivitol to the latest chapter I'm working on (buzz kill!).

But even that loss has a silver lining. After shedding a few tears and a bit of teeth gnashing, I buckled down and got back to work - to great success. I've finally written the ending to my first wip - now I've just got to write the middle part (sheepish grin) - Milestone #1

Milestone #2: I've finally finished 'the torture' my synopsis - gotta have one of those before my wip gets the final green light from my publisher. By tomorrow afternoon I'll officially be a writer under contract - YIPEEEEEE!

'Til we meet again,

Temple

   

Lesson Learned

"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it ceased to be one."

- Mark Twain

Last night, I settled at my laptop for a night of writing. When I inserted my flash drive into the USB port...nothing happened. It didn't take me long to discover that it somehow was broken. And my entire manuscript, notes and research are on it. As well as every ebook I've purchased over the past decade - ARGHHHHH!

I was in the dark deep pit of despair when I decided to Google my problem and see if I could find a solution - to the internets! I found this place in Seattle. You send them your broken flash drive, along with a new one, they retrieve the info/files, transfer them to the new flash drive and then send them both back to you. They promise a 3-7 day turn around (from date of reciept) and a 100% refund if they can't retrieve your data. The cost: $200 (not including the price of a new flash drive and postage = @ $50) a small price to pay to retrieve my precious files and ebooks.

I didn't back up my files. I meant to but then life kept...happening. And, to be brutally honest, my wip had been relegated to I'll-get-to-it-when-I-can-land for so long it was easy to put it off. And when I got my shit together and got serious about writing, I was so excited, got so into working on my wip - yeah you guessed it, I still didn't back up my work. Shame on me. And by the time I realized I needed to act on the opportunity, it ceased to be one. That will NOT happen again. I've already taken the steps so that, when I have my precious files back this will never happen again. 

Lesson Learned.

*I have purposely not named the disk retrieval service. Not until I can give them an honest thumbs up or down - I'll update this post when my thumbs are ready ;-}

Update: My thumbs are ready: I'm happy to report that the disk retrieval service: Flash Drive Pros  is amazing! Worth every dime. For the story and info see: Like a Ninja.

'Til we meet again,

Temple