Conspiracy Theories

Have you ever felt that heaven or hell is conspiring against you? As I struggled to upload my newly released novel, The Rhyme’s Library, I knew that I had either demons sitting on my shoulder giggling gleefully at my frustration, or editor angels trying to protect me from embarrassing myself by publishing a not ready for the world novel. I still do not know if I had angels or demons possessing my computer that day…the day I did not upload my novel.

Because I try to live by the Mom Rule of work first, play (write) later, I completed all my packing, cleaning, errands that needed to be done before our family vacation. Finally, at the end of my very long day I sat down to upload my novel.

I went to Smashwords, typed in the short description, the long description, set the price, uploaded the cover, and signed all the agreements.

And it didn’t work. At the bottom of the page it read “error.” When I went to bed there were still errors.

No worries—I was bringing a laptop and could complete the uploading at the hotel. We arrived in Philadelphia safely but the computer did not. Sigh. Four jammed packed fun filled days and three states later, I sat down at the New York City Public Library. (Never been there? You have to go—it’s one of my very favorite places in the world. Pictures to follow.) Visitors are allowed 45 minutes on the computers after a rather lengthy and tedious log-in process.

I sat down to upload my novel to Smashwords. I typed in the short description, the long description, set the price, uploaded the cover, and signed all the agreements.

And the computer froze. Mouse, curser, swearing, pleading…nothing worked. I closed down the computer and waited for it to reload. I now had 20 minutes remaining, so I completed the lengthy sign in process and…

I typed in the short description, the long description, set the price, uploaded the cover, and signed all the agreements.

And with only minutes to spare, The Rhyme’s Library successfully uploaded to the Smashwords site.

At the moment I’m sitting in the basement of the hotel next to a noisy ice machine. Another day of the sights and excitement of New York City is about to begin (after my daughters get out of the shower.) While I’m doing the things that lucky people do in NYC, my novel is floating in the cyber world, waiting to show up on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple.

Are editor angels moaning in despair at my stupidity or cheering for my success? Are demons giggling at my fool-hardiness or cursing my Smashwords know-how. I might not ever know. All I can be sure of is—the deed is done. And I can always press a re-do button.