Saving #StoringYourWork by Janice Seagraves

My rough drawing of a saved icon

I was going to post about not doing my anual goals for the New Year, but as I seached for an old manuscript from two to three years ago, I decided to post about saving or storing your work.

I usually really good at saving or storing my work, but for some reason this one manuscript didn't get saved. I'll have to rewrite it from scratch. Which means more work for me, but in the long run it might work out all right since I was going to turn the 50K manuscript into a 20K short story.   

I have an external harddrive, which I fully recongmend. But my story wasn't saved there either.

I also seached my Dropbox. Wasn't there either.

I also checked my Microsoft cloud. Nothing but the manuscripts I've been working on.

I had to download my entire Mozy storage to see what was in there and it took forever to download.

Here's a list of online storage here.

But, whatever you use, but consistant. Save your data.

Here's an excerpt from a story I didn't lose:

I'm so excited about our new anthology, it has my story Cowgirl Up which follows my earlier story Follow Your Cowboy Heart in the Roping the Cowboy: 7 Romances on the Range. 

Follow Your Cowboy Heart was about Maxwell Dréville, and you get to meet his family, including his sister Gwen. Cowgirl Up is Gwen's story about how she met her man.  This story is actually from an much, much earlier never before published manuscript that I wrote ages ago. I love Gwen and her family. This is a story from my heart. 

Enjoy.

Arthur Castel is a bored, handsome, charming playboy and college student who has dated many women in his social circle, but none of them keeps his attention for long. Enter Gwen Dréville, a spunky hard-working country girl, whom Arthur sets his sights on seducing. Gwen has a secret— she’s a powerful empath. Her ability has a dark side. When someone makes her angry she can find their worst fear and make them relive it. But, as a virgin, she doesn’t know if she possesses the family curse to sexually bond with whomever she sleeps with for the very first time.

Excerpt: (first date)

Author and Gwen took their drinks and number plaque to a nearby table. 

Gwen glanced at Arthur with a twinkle in her eye. “Air hockey?” 

“I thought you’d never ask.” He pulled out his wallet. “I’ve got to warn you, I’m quite good at it.” 

“So am I. Feed the machine already.” She took off her new jacket and tied her T-shirt in a knot to keep it out of the way, but it accented her hourglass figure. 

Arthur tore his gaze away long enough to feed the coin machine, then slipped a token into the air hockey table. I’m glad she suggested playing a game. Most of the women I date would have complained they might break a nail. 

They got it going pretty good for a while. Gwen won the first round. During the next one, Arthur used his longer arms to his advantageadvantage and won a point. 

“Okay, Gwen, if I win this time, you’ll have to give me something.” 

“Like what?” 

“A kiss.” He winked. 

“What do I get if I win?” 

“Twenty bucks,” he said. 

She arched an eyebrow. “Does that mean my kisses are worth twenty bucks?” 

“I don’t know—I haven’t kissed you yet. Your kisses might be worthless,” he told her with a teasing grin. 

The animation in her face disappeared. “Put a token in the machine, smarty pants.” 

The game went on for a long time. Their pizza finally arrived, but neither still scored a point on the other. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t want a kiss.” He slammed his paddle into the puck. 

“Maybe I’m afraid you’ll have bad breath after eating the pizza.” She darted forward to counter his move. 

Arthur bounced the puck off both sides, but she managed to hit the puck back. 

“What if I kiss you before we eat the pizza?” He tried the move again. Is she tiring? 

“In front of all these people?” she asked, countering his play. 

“What people? There’s hardly anyone in here. What kind of kiss do you think I’m going to—uh—give you?” He executed a move that won him the air hockey championship on campus. 

She knocked the puck back. “Don’t know, what is a twenty-dollar kiss like?” 

Damn, she’s good. “You’re trying to distract me.” 

“You don’t know me, so I’ll tell you.” She punctuated each thing she said with a hit on the puck. “I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. And I mean everything…I…say.” Then she madesome fancy maneuver his eyes couldn’t follow and scored the winning point. Gwen’s bangs fell over the side of her lovely face and her ponytail lay across one shoulder. Sweat glisten on her skin. Her breasts heaved with exertion while her smile twisted to one side. 

She’s sexier right now in that old paint splattered T-shirt, without any makeup than Katrina or any other woman in my friend group. “I guess you really don’t want a kiss after all?” 

“Maybe, or I really need the twenty for gas,” she countered. “Come on let’s eat before the pizza gets cold.”

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https://www.amazon.com/Simply-Irresistible-Romance-Books-Collection-ebook/dp/B078KQRC6X/