A few weeks ago, I got the worst surprise I've ever gotten in the history of my writing career.

There's nothing like finding out that a split-second power loss corrupted the file with your latest work in progress, costing you the last 6 months of work, to get you back in the habit of backing up your files.

But today, I have good news: while digging through some buried folders that I don't usually look at, I found a file I'd forgot I'd made, with the most beautiful name any file has ever had:

It was kind of like the feeling you get when you reach into a coat pocket, expecting to find lint and gum wrappers, and instead discover 100 dollars, the secret to life, the universe and everything, and the cure for hiccups.

Granted, I lost most of the two rounds of editing that I'd done on the book. But at least I won't have to rewrite half of the first draft, while wondering if I still have all the scenes that I added the first time.

The release of the finished product may have been delayed, but I still have all the character development that Sam went through in my mind as I fleshed him out through the editing process, and the small adjustments that I'll remember to include as I re-do the editing.

It isn't perfect, but I'm much happier about this than I was a few days ago.

To celebrate this big relief, I have a present for you: a complimentary glimpse into Catgirl Roommate.

To get your free except of my upcoming humor novel for cat lovers, just click the button below and download it.
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Thank you for your patience as I recover my lost work, and I look forward to sharing the completed version of Catgirl Roommate​ with you.

​I recently read an interesting article about bestselling author Theresa Ragan. After hundreds of rejection notices, she made it big... and part of that was due to the way she channeled her frustration and rage at the publishing industry.

In this article, she describes her journey, and reveals the challenges that finally pushed her to take the steps she needed to in order to become a bestseller.

She also gives five tips for aspiring authors to improve their craft and boost their success.

​To find out how Theresa went from getting constantly rejected, to writing a book that spent several months as one of KDP's top five sellers, click the button below to check out the article.

There was a time when I backed up my files religiously. Every day, after writing, I would email myself a copy of my novel.

Thankfully, this habit remained unnecessary for years. My files remained intact and undamaged, and, over time, complacency began to take hold.

You can probably tell where this is going.

Between never needing my backup files, and an over-six-month bout with insomnia that caused my care-o-meter to dip to an unprecedented low, I slipped out of the habit of backing things up.

And then, one day, it happened. My laptop bag unzipped itself and spat out my laptop while the file with Catgirl Roommate was open, causing my laptop to lose power for a split second.

For some reason, OpenOffice took this as its cue to turn the entire file into hashtags. Every. Single. Word.

One moment, I was less than sixty pages away from being done the final round of editing.

The next, I had half of a first draft, a fully edited excerpt consisting of the book's first scene, a bunch of scenes that were outlined but not fully written yet, and six months of work lost.

Note to self: resume backing things up. >_<

Now, I'm working my way through the five stages of file corruption.

Denial

"Oh, come on, it can't be THAT easy to lose 6 months of work! Surely there has to be a backup somewhere!"

(And surely Weebly didn't just delete the above sentence simply because I deleted an element lower in the blog post. Wait... it did. *Rewrites*)

Come on, text processors; get your act together!

Anger
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"Are you serious?! Who the heck designs a laptop bag whose laptop compartment unzips all the way down to the bottom of the case? That's just ASKING for an accident! There's no WAY the benefits of this design outweigh the obvious problems! What were they thinking?!

"And why didn't I check my laptop bag more frequently to make sure this horrible design flaw didn't have its obvious outcome? Why didn't I sew that part of the zipper shut? And why didn't I back up my file for six months? What was I thinking?!"

Bargaining

"There HAS to be a way to fix this. Finding a fix is MUCH better than doing the last six months of work all over again.

"Sure, most of the forums I checked say there is no fix, but three of them mentioned possible solutions... none of which worked... and one of which might have actually caused one of the other fixes not to work...

"...But the people on Facebook say that transplanting my hard drive into another computer might work!

"...I hope my hard drive is compatible with one of my family's other computers.

"This has to work!"

(Note: I haven't tried it yet, but I'm planning to give it a shot tomorrow.)

Depression

"I really don't want to do this work all over again. If I have to do that, I'm going to be so sick of Catgirl Roommate by the end of it, my work will probably suck. I might have to take a break from working on it, and do some other projects for a while to get some variety.

"I was so ready to be finished writing this. I looked forward to sharing it with everyone. My family was looking forward to reading it. How could this have happened? I mean, I know how, but HOW?!"

Acceptance

Nope. This one actually hasn't happened yet. I'm still stuck in "bargaining", with brief dips into a state of dismay that, if I'm honest, doesn't really count as depression.

Yes, it's saddening to think of all that work being lost, including scenes I was proud of. And no, I really don't want to re-tread all that ground again.

One first draft and two rounds of editing is enough. TWO first drafts, and FOUR rounds of editing, is enough to pose a real danger of making me totally sick of my own book.

But hopefully that won't happen. And if worst comes to worst, I can take a break, work on other stuff, and then come back to Catgirl Roommate.

OK, I guess there is a LITTLE bit of acceptance, waiting to happen if need be. But hopefully it won't be necessary.

Now, to find out how to transplant that hard drive...

While I tend to lean toward sci-fi and fantasy for my entertainment, I'm also a fan of horror when it's done really well.

In the process of reading books, watching movies, and playing video games that are designed to frighten or unnerve their audience, I've noticed five techniques that stories often use to get a reaction:

For movies, TV shows, video games and novels alike, this is probably the easiest technique to plaster all over a story. It doesn't take much imagination to paint the walls with intestines, so like jumpscares, it can look boring and tacky if overused.

However, it can be highly effective if used right. A heavily gore-splattered room is an obvious indication that something horrific happened here, and if it's paired with a blood streak leading in the direction the protagonist has to go, it adds an extra layer of "Oh CRAP, what's ahead of me?!"

Also, while a nonstop parade of red walls can numb the audience in short order, a little blood can go a long way in a story where there's normally none of it. The very fact that it's rare makes it stand out as a sign that something is seriously and unusually wrong.

And if there's blood where there's no reason for there to be blood, like bleeding walls or a sink bubbling red? Guess what, protagonist - something supernatural is probably at work, and it isn't friendly. Good luck with the rest of your life.
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If you're looking to subtly spook your audience, as opposed to dragging a slow parade of claws across their nerves, the atmosphere of your story is one of your best tools.

Uncanny stillness, hostile or hungry noises, flickers of movement on the edge of their senses, an eerie soundtrack, ominous warnings, an environment in a state of disrepair... there are many ways to hint that all is not well, and it's time to start worrying.

This kind of horror story can actually be almost soothing at times, while still maintaining the creepy tension that characterizes subtle horror. And when it does show its fangs in the form of blood or jumpscares, the fact that you haven't gotten the audience used to them can make them all the more terrifying.
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Maybe the landscape changed inexplicably. Or everyone's stares are either strangely blank, or just a little too focused on YOU. Maybe everyone's OK with things the protagonist and audience find odd or disturbing. Or perhaps something happened that shouldn't be possible - or was it all in your head?

Whatever it is, it's subtle, it's wrong, and it's unnerving. It takes more skill to pull off than gore or jump scares, but Silent Hill 2, The Invasion, and some of Ted Dekker's novels do it and do it well.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver aptly summed up a very sound principle of horror stories that involve any form of mutation:

"When you meet anything that used to be human once and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it, and feel for your hatchet.”

Perhaps out of an instinct to avoid contagious diseases, and more obviously because we can mentally contrast the gruesome creature in front of us to what it used to look like, humans are naturally wired to be creeped out by things that look almost human but aren't.

Deformed animals can work too, especially if they look diseased enough to trigger the "avoid contagion" instinct.

And if there are signs that, underneath the ghastly mental and physical transformation, the original consciousness is still alive and suffering?

Hello, nightmare fuel.


What is your favorite of these 5 techniques?

And do you have any ideas for how to make a jumpscare in a novel that doesn't involve pop-ups or illustrations?

I look forward to your comments.