The Importance of Backing Up

Welcome Melissa Fox to Tattered Pages today, who brings with her a very interesting post about electronic malfunctions. Melissa, after reading this post, I think you absolutely MUST include these incidents in a story. You MUST! How completely bizarre! LOL

Thank you AJ, for having me visit Tattered Pages today! 

My husband and I exist in some kind of weird electrical black hole. The man can put out streetlights like no one I’ve ever met. We just drive down the road, and at least one blinks out as we go under. This happens with enough regularity not to be coincidence and has for years and years—ever since I’ve known him.

He can’t buy electronics, like sound systems or TVs. He does the research and picks out what he wants, but I have to actually make the purchase. We learned that lesson after returning brand new component after component that refused to work for no known reason. Even his car when we were in college. The electronic dashboard stopped working one day, which made for guessing speed and how much gas was left an exhilarating game. And the brand new one he bought right from the dealer to replace it when he graduated? The windshield wipers refused to work during the first big downpour after he got it. I buy all the cars now, too.

Me, on the other hand, I’m a computer death ray. Hard drives take one look at me and faint like a Margaret Mitchell heroine. I buy a new computer, and one month, one week, six months later…all gone. Everything. For no apparent reason. Doesn’t seem to matter what kind. Brand new PC, top of the line technology—dead in less than a year. Replacement? That lasted just over, waiting until the warranty expired by about three days. So, off to the Apple store I go, and you guessed it. Two months later, I’m back, with a laptop that mocks me with a gray screen.

Really?

What my mis-adventures taught me is to back up, all the time, every night. That, and the time I accidentally hit “replace” and saved the wrong file, losing the last twenty thousand words of the manuscript I just finished, but that’s another story. I back up to an external hard drive with Time Machine and use a program to save from my laptop to the desktop PC (still pretty much fried and only used for browsing and playing games) and an online location. Every night, before I go to bed, I copy my “Stories” file to a flash drive. That clammy, cold sweat, hot flash, stomach-tumbling, nausea-inducing feeling of losing hours, months, years of work is nothing I ever want to experience again, so the paranoia and extra effort is worth it.

Do you have a nightmare story of losing important files?

Demon-slayer Conor O’Shea is about to engage in the most dangerous encounter of his life—facing the woman he scorned.

 

For years, Merry Bradbury's world revolved around Conor O'Shea. After his sudden betrayal leaves her alone and heartbroken, she comes home to settle her past and move into the future. The last person she expects to see is Conor.

 

Conor never wanted anything more than forever with Merry. Discovering he is a Wraith warrior, honor bound to fight demons, destroys that plan. Merry is his Amorta, his one true soul mate, but he leaves to keep her safe from the evil that stalks him.

 

Eight years later, Conor's worst fear is realized, and he returns to defend Merry from his enemies. Can he save her from an unspeakable fate and reclaim her heart? And if he does, will Merry be able to accept all that he is?  

EXCERPT:

“Stay here,” Conor told her. “Don’t move, no matter what you see. No matter what happens, Merry. Stay right here.”

He waited until she nodded her assent before he turned. The woman hissed, and his shoulders rolled as he took a step toward her. Merry’s eyes grew round when long-bladed weapons appeared in his hands.

“Wraith,” the woman snarled, lowering herself into a half-crouch.

The wicked blades twisted in his hands to point in her direction. He took another step toward the redhead, unnaturally swift but pure and beautiful in his power.

“Go now,” he said in a quiet, even tone. “And I’ll let you live one more day."

The woman’s attention left him for an instant to settle on Merry, her eyes narrowing with speculation. A slow, feline smile curved her red lips.

“You think you can protect her,” she purred. “How sweet. I’m going to find out if she is as delicious as she smells after I’m done with you. 

Melissa is hosting a GIVE-AWAY!
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Author Bio:

After being rationed books by my parents like most kids get rationed candy, I turned to writing to tide me over between fixes. Having lived in the suburbs of the Mid-West, desert of the Southwest, foothills of the Rocky Mountains, I’m now on an island in the Puget Sound with my husband and dogs.

 

My debut paranormal romance, WRAITH REDEEMED, is now available in print and all e-formats from The Wild Rose Press.

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Thanks for being my guest today!

XO AJ XO