Backing Up Your Files

I have a question for you. Do you back-up your files offsite? The other day a writer on one of my loops posted that she had typed eight chapters of her new book when she hit something on her keyboard and the entire manuscript disappeared. Bless her heart she posted on the loop desperately asking if anyone knew how to retrieve her lost material. She received several different suggestions, but to no avail. All that work she’d put into typing the chapters had disappeared.

Author Interview: Beate Boeker

Wednesday Morning Author Interviews are so much fun, to both participate in and read, especially when it involves Beate Boeker, who is a fun and fascinating writer who lives in Germany.  I have no doubt you’ll enjoy getting to know here as much as I did.  So, here we go....

Me:  I understand if you toss your name into Latin/German to English translator, then Beate Boeker would, literally, come out as  Happy Books.   And you are a self-described Happy Books writer! So did you decide to do that based on your name translation, or did you figure out the translation after you started writing?

Beate:  My husband figured it out after I had finished my first novel in English. He was delighted when he discovered that the name had not been taken on the Internet and immediately booked it for me before he started to create my website. It's funny that we never even noticed it in all the years before.

Me:  Tell us about your latest book for Avalon, A Little Bit of Passion.

Beate:  It's my only novel ever written in first person. The heroine Karen writes e-mails to her best friend Leslie and tells her about the interesting man she met . . . and how her feelings spiral out of control.

Happy Spring, everyone!

by Carolyn Brown

Are you ready for Easter egg hunts, gardening and sitting in the swing under the shade tree with a big glass of sweet tea?

A shade tree with a big glass of sweet tea…gives me a visual of the old south. Willow branches doing the ballet in the slow southern breeze, crickets and tree frogs doing their duets and handsome southern men who protect their sweet little women folk.

It was a pretty picture until Fairlee Lavalle tapped her foot and cleared her throat behind me. She says she’s not a woman that a man needs to protect: more like protect himself from.

I thought maybe everyone would like to get to know Fairlee better so I invited her to join us on today’s blog for an interview. She’s the heroine of Walkin’ on Clouds that came out the first of this month. Don’t y’all just love that cover? It’s one of my all time favorites. Fairlee is sitting under the shade tree with a big glass of sweet tea waiting for questions. Everyone got a full glass of tea? Oh, wait a minute. Lia needs hers refilled before we start. This editing business is tough and she deserves lots of sweet tea for her fantastic job.

Okay, everyone comfortable?

Fairlee, it is good to have you with us this morning. Are you ready for questions?

Fairlee: Of course and this is excellent tea. It must be nice to have ice any time you want it. In my generation ice was a luxury.

How did you feel when you woke up in a ship on the morning of what was supposed to be your wedding day?

Fairlee: When I figured out that I’d been kidnapped I was ready to jump ship and catch the next stage coach back to my beloved Matthew. We didn’t have that amazing love connection that my sister, Delia, had with Tyrell, but not every marriage has that kind of passion. Matthew and I might not have stars in our eyes but we would be happy.

What about when you realized it was Isaac Burnet who’d kidnapped you?

Fairlee: A lady would not utter the words that came to my mind. That outlaw had ruined my life again and he was going to pay dearly.

You’d traveled from Texas to Louisiana with the outlaws but you had your sisters back then. How was traveling with just you and Isaac?

Fairlee: That man was insufferable. I was determined to show him that I could outride, outshoot and outdo him but it kept me on my toes.

The title of your story, Walkin’ on Clouds, where did that come from?

Fairlee (with a giggle): Isaac and I had this big fight when I told him that I was in love with Matthew. He said that I was walkin’ on clouds and up that high anyone, even the devil, looked like an angel. Took me a long time to figure out that he was right and even longer to admit it.

When did you first figure out that fate had thrown you two together?

Fairlee: Looking back, there was an attraction there in From Wine to Water, but I would never, ever tell anyone. Not then! And it took me a long time to come to grips with it even after he’d kidnapped me.

What did you think of Momma Glory?

Fairlee: That woman scared the dickens out of me at first. When she spoke everyone jumped. But after a while I learned to love her and appreciate her wisdom.

I understand you got sick and had to spend a while at a cabin with Isaac?

Fairlee: Yes, I did and he was so bossy. A Lavalle woman doesn’t take well to a bossy man. They tend to rub us the wrong way and Isaac and I locked up horns regularly while I was recuperating. But (don’t tell him) I really did fall in love with him when we were in the cabin. He was bossy but he was also gentle and caring.

Are we going to read about your sister, Tempest, anytime soon?

Fairlee: I understand she’s been pestering Carolyn Brown for a while, saying that it’s not fair that Delia and I got to tell our stories and she’s had to take a back seat in the buggy long enough. Don’t tell Tempest because Carolyn wants to surprise her but her story is about to be revealed in A Trick of the Light in August. It’s been fun visiting with you lovely ladies but I’ve got to get back to the plantation now.

If anyone has any more questions to ask me or Fairlee, please feel free. I’ve got a hot line to her for the rest of today. So ask away! 　　

$86,400.00

This month, I’m giving a ‘pep’ talk to all those procrastinators out there, and a good kick in the seat of the pants!
It’s been said many times if you want someone to be accountable for something, hit them in their pocket. People will always follow their money—especially in these bad economic times.
Close your eyes for a minute and imagine you just won $86,400.00 as the result of a contest. And each morning your bank will deposit another $86,400.00 into your private account for your use.

Obviously every prize has rules, just as any game has rules.
1. What you don't spend each day is forfeited to the bank. There's no transferring the money into some other account, and only you can spend it!
2. The bank can end the game without warning, and can tell you the game is over! As a matter of fact, it can close out that account and you won’t receive another dime.

So what would you personally do with the money knowing you had to spend it all each day?

You'd buy everything and anything you've ever wanted, right? Not just for yourself, but for everyone you love, right? You'd probably even donate it, because you couldn't possibly spend it all on yourself, right?


Okay, now consider this. If you put that $86,400 in seconds instead of money, you have your own magical bank.

Every one of us has in our possession, our own magical bank. Most of the time, we take it for granted.

So let’s apply the same rules as we did above.

Every morning, we're given those 86,400, only this time in seconds as a gift of life. Not using that time is lost forever. Sorry folks, but we don't get them back, and it's not credited to any account.

So what you didn't do today, because you procrastinated one more time, is lost forever. The good news though is tomorrow morning your seconds are again replenished, but you’ve already lost the previous days’ seconds. That’s the bank dissolving them . . . without warning.

SO, what will YOU do with your next 86,400 seconds? Will you follow your long awaited dreams by writing that story begging to be told? Will you finish that project you started ages ago promising you’d get to it, but never have? Will you go on that diet you keep putting off? Or will you allow another day to pass you by?

It’s a little different picture when you think this in terms of money vs. time, isn’t it? Gives you a whole other aspect of life.

So what will you do today?