All posts by NewEngland_Muse

I'm a traditionally and self published author. I write in the genre of children and YA at the moment but working my way up to adults. I'm a sports loving, photo taking gal who loves to sing/dance to my own enjoyment. I love to laugh even at myself. I am also owned by 8 birds and 2 hamsters, and yes they know it. :)

Evil computer, Manuscript, Writings

My Lost Manuscript Part 1

January 15, 2013 NewEngland_Muse 2 Comments

Friday Jan 11,2013 will forever be a day when my heart nearly stopped. That was the day my computer lost my novel of 20k. I am part of a group of writers who are striving to write every day for the year 2013. It could be a paragraph, a page or even more. It does not matter so long that you write.

Some of us have made a personal word count to try to achieve on a daily basis. Well early Saturday I had accomplished my word count, saved the document and moved on with my life. I did not pay much attention to my computer as I primarily worked offline. I had started to make a list of all my short stories and books and placed them in a chart plus in a folder so I had ready access to them. When I looked for the book that I had been working on just that morning I could not find the file. It was not on the desk top, documents, temporary files or the trash bin.

Panic did fill me as I looked at each folder one by one in case I had misfiled. No cigar. I had just done a back up of my computer the day before so there was that. Until I plugged it in and the computer would not could not open it up. My heart was falling fast at this point as it beat faster in its descent. I saw three files on my desktop that had the name of my book. I opened each one up. One had a page count of 24, the other 32 and the last one 41. My page count that morning had been 80. Shit shit shit

The tears started to flow as the realization that it might be gone. Calling my husband up I asked for advice, he stated he would look at my computer when he got home. I have always written my writings by pen and paper first, always. In fact the first 10k of this book was written by hand. But I decided to see if I could do it by computer and save the time. Lesson learned, never again. It takes more time but it saves the heart aches As I stared at the compute screen the tears flowed faster. With that came the anger. I started to fuss and scream and yell at the stupid piss of shit computer that had dared to take my book away from me. How it had nerve as it mock me with files that had half the book as it teased me into a false hope that they were the book I was so desperately looking for.

I sat back in my chair and just sighed softly to myself. I had been so careful with my works. I have three external hard drives that I do back ups on a more than regular basis. I can’t chance on anything happening to my works. I am so careful it borders on paranoia. But yet here I was with a MS of 20k words and it was gone. The lovely part, yes I am being sarcastic, was when I did a file search it first told me no such file existed yet my desk top clearly had three versions of it. Then a few minutes later my computer told me oh yes you do have that file and it is in this spot. Upon going to the location no such file existed. Yes my computer had the upper hand and it knew it.

To Be Continued…

Home Team, NFL, Teams

NFL talk

January 11, 2013 NewEngland_Muse 4 Comments

I been seeing my chiropractor for a few years now. He knows I am from the North and he is from the South. We both know that the other is a huge avid sports fan. He also knows who I root for.

On Wednesday we had this conversation.

A football moment with my doctor.

Doctor:”So who do you expect to win this weekend?”

He looks up to see me staring at him and not answering.

Doctor:”Oh that’s right you expect your team to win every time.”

He chuckles.

Me:”Why would I go in expecting them to lose?”

We both chuckle.

I been following my team since the 70ties. This has been through the good and bad…oh my gosh the bad. But I still watched and rooted for them to win.

Seriously folks why would you watch your team if you were expecting them to lose? In the off-chance perhaps by the grace of all that is good in your world they might win? I think differently and I know I am not alone. I am a die-hard fan for all the teams I root for. Yes there will be times I get a little nervous but I will stand confident until the score board has a time of 0:00.

Will they win every time? Absolutely not. But to think otherwise is a great feeling.

Emlyn Chand, Fiction, Torn Together Blog Tour

Torn Together Tour

January 8, 2013 NewEngland_Muse 8 Comments

Torn Together by Emlyn Chand

About the Book

From her cheating boyfriend to her dead father and cold, judgmental mother, Daly knows she can’t trust others to be there when it counts. This cynicism begins to melt away when she meets Kashi, a light-hearted charmer from India, who decides he cares too much to let her fade into the background of her own life. After a series of false starts, their quirky romance carries them to India, where Daly must win the approval of Kashi’s family in order to seal their “forever.”Meanwhile, Laine struggles to cope with the pain of early widowhood, fleeing into the pages of her well-worn library and emerging only to perform her duties as a social worker at the crisis pregnancy center. Although her daughter wants nothing more than to work as an artist, Laine doesn’t know how to redirect Daly to a more suitable profession without further damaging their tenuous relationship.Can Laine look past her pain to learn from an unlikely mentor? Has Daly finally found someone whom she can trust? Will the women recognize their common bonds before the relationship is broken beyond repair?“Torn Together,” Emlyn Chand’s first sojourn into Literary/Women’s Fiction, illustrates how our similarities often drive us apart.

My Review

“Torn Together” by Emlyn Chand is a break from her other current books. This genre is fiction and the age group is 16 and up.Our main character is a young woman by the name of Daly who lives with her mother. Her father passed a few years ago and ever since the relationship between mother and daughter has been tensed. They both have forgotten the art of communication as they go about their lives pass each other in their homeDaly is an artist, an amazing one at that and needs to apply for a scholarship. The reason being her mother, Laine, refuses to pay for her college in a field she considers a waste of time. It does not help that Daly’s boyfriend has moved on with another woman without telling her. It is when Laine brings home a young girl Meghann to give her a lesson how to cook that Daly wonders why her mother has compassion for this young woman but not for her own daughter. Soon Meghann is thrust upon her and soon the girls bond and become best friends. Meghann ends up being the go between the two.But that is not where it ends. On fate Daly comes across a pharmacist by the name of Kashi, a native of India, that her world truly changes. Why on fate? Because he says so. The ending will totally throw you for a loop. But once I calmed down at Emlyn I realized this is how it was supposed to end, it completed the circle of life.This is a really good read for people who want to experience a range of emotions when reading a novel. You will go from being happy, sad, to angry and return back to happy again. It is a treat of a book and one that you will enjoy.

Novel Publicity Blog Tour Notes

Wanna win a $50 gift card or an autographed copy of Torn Together?

Leave a comment on my blog. One random commenter during this tour will win a $50 gift card. For the full list of participating blogs, http://www.novelpublicity.com/torn-together/
Enter the Rafflecopter contest! I’ve posted the contest form below, or you can enter on the tour page linked above.

About the author: Emlyn Chand emerged from the womb with a fountain pen clutched in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm Novel Publicity. Best known for her Young Adult novels, she is also developing a small, but devoted, following to her children’s book series and is beginning to dabble in other genres as well. Emlyn enjoys connecting with readers and is available via almost every social media site in existence. Visit EmlynChand.com for more info. Don’t forget to say “hi” to her sun conure Ducky! Connect with Emlyn on her