An Oops! And a yeah!

[longknife]

While revising Waltzing in preparation for publishing it on Kindle, Nook and lulu.com, I tried to find a picture from the cult that I remembered. It was a stylized angel with a ring of seven stars above its head.

Well, in my search, I came across a website that the search engine indicated had pictures of the cult I sought. My anti-virus software indicated the site was safe. So, I clicked on the link and found the site blazing with a fiery icon claimed it had been hacked!!! I instantly backed out and went on to try another. Why worry? I had Windows Defender on, the Windows firewall was enabled and my ISP had provided me with an anti-virus program that was updated on an almost daily basis. What could possibly happen?

"Warning! Your computer has been infected with a virus!"

It gave me a link to software that would instantly disinfect my computer - for only $60-some. But, because the virus infected my browser, I couldn't get out or even get to my Control Panel to do anything about it.

My computer crashed!

Where was my backup disk?
How could I get it cleaned up?

Well, the backup disk was several months old but I hoped it had kept me from losing a lot. I knew a couple who ran a business selling and repairing PCs. Luckily, they were able to save most of my data files and even sold me a flash drive with a complete backup loaded.

I lost some stuff but managed - thank goodness - to keep all my novels, stories and works-in-progress.

So, back to work.

Wait! What about the status of the novel I had a contract for? Where was that?

I sent an email to my editor and - lo and behold! - he responded and it appeared almost promising. The cover had been assigned to someone and he was awaiting another board review. And, yes, he wanted to see the sequel - after I did a bit of work on it. [Taking a look at it now, it appears to need more than a "bit of work".] And yes, he'd love to see what I've done on my Father Serra trilogy.

So, after an oops - PLEASE KEEP YOUR FILES BACKED UP AND UP-TO-DATE - I managed to get a yeah. Sometimes things happen that get your spirits up. So, keep at it.