It's been a while, I know.
We just moved. Like, 2,000 miles away kind of move, so things have been cra-zy. Seriously, absurdly busy and weird. Our two youngest, Finn and Britta are having quite the time adjusting to the move, so it's a challenge to find time to read or write, or, in this case, blog.
So many exciting things happening out there in writerly land, though. I wanted to take a second to congratulate the lovely Jessica Park on her amazeballs article that was picked up by The Huffington Post. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, it's definitely worth your time.
I find it a wee-bit humorous that there are a group of people that continue to bad mouth me for "attacking reviewers," when they are directed to my blog from file sharing sites that STEAL books... Keeping it classy, I see.
One of my closest writer friends, Nyrae Dawn recently said something that really stuck with me. That we have chosen a profession that takes constant shots at your ego. It's true. We are forever getting our ego's bruised and dinged. But this career path also leads us to some of the most amazing people. I have been so fortunate to find a great group of author friends that I am thankful for daily. Jamie McGuire recently touched on the topic of how NOT to go about gaining author friends. It's well written and spot on.
Speaking of amazing people that you meet along the way! I am so flipping excited to meet up with so many of my close writer friends in person at SCBWI this August. But, one of the pluses to our move, is that Nyrae Dawn and I are now neighbors! Seriously, we live like one exit away from each other and got a chance to have coffee and a (many hour) chat earlier this week.
In other news...
Here's the cover for my upcoming release, FRIEND IS A FOUR LETTER WORD. This is Quinn's brother, Carter's story. He's sarcastic, and romantic, but oh yeah, probably not as perfect and unscathed as he'd like to believe... I cannot WAIT to share this book with you.
Okay. Here's the part that I've been dreading to write. I've sat down so many times to do it, but I just HATE the thought of having to admit it.
Delicate is supposed to release at the end of the week. It isn't going to happen. There are several reasons this project has been delayed. I had originally planned to have it up before Britta was born, then she came a month early. So I decided I'd have it up when she was 2 months old, only to have her spend 6 weeks in ICU after having open heart surgery at 3 weeks old. Once we finally got home, we had to play major catch up as a family, but I was confident I could get it to the editor and up before the end of the month. And then... the absolute worst thing that can happen to a manuscript happened. I went to pull it up one day while making final tweaks and there were only 66 pages in the file. Sixty-six of the 258 that HAD been there. I still don't know where they went. I don't know if I left it open and maybe Finn pressed something when I wasn't looking. I honestly have no idea. But after taking the hard drive in, it was confirmed, the pages were gone. It's taken me 2 weeks to come to grips with the fact that I have to rewrite those pages.
I know you're probably wondering how in the world that happens. How, with someone who writes for a living, could I not have it saved to a backup source?Trust me, I've asked myself that question a hundred thousand times. And I feel like such an ass having to admit that, the answer is, I don't have an excuse. I do have several versions of Delicate saved to my hard drive, but not THE version. Not the completed, I'm proud to put this out there with my name on it version. Could I upload one of those to make the deadline? Yes. But I won't. I can't. They aren't the "right" ones.
So, in the meantime, I've been spending my time trying to recreate what was lost. What I loved about the story. I won't say what deadline I'm shooting for, because I don't want to jinx myself. And I don't want to let anyone down AGAIN. But I can say, that it shouldn't be much longer. I do have other versions to refer back to, so it isn't completely starting over, but it is time consuming, and with everything that has gone on recently, time is not something I have a ton of!
I HATE letting people, readers, friends down.
So, as an apology of sorts, I'm doing a giveaway.
I'm giving away 2- $50 gift cards to Amazon to 2 awesome readers!
All you need to do is add Delicate TBR on Goodreads, and tweet the giveaway!
Just follow the instructions on Rafflecopter below.
Thanks for entering. And for understanding... life happens...
Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
