Five things that... scare me.

Hello everyone,

Okay, the Friday's Answered Question thing didn't really rock my world, so I'm trying something new for September.

Friday's Five Things...

Each Friday I'm going to post a Five things that... whatever comes to mind.

I'm starting off with Five things that... scare me.

1. Spiders. Okay, I know it's so much of a classic it a cliche, but some things become classics for a reason. I don't think it's the spider I dislike as much as something I don't have control over in my space. I can have a big spider on my hand (did this in a zoo once). No problem. And if I know there's a spider in the room, I'm fine - as long as I know where it is. It's when I loose track of it I worry.

In my defense, I'm fine with any other animal. Snakes, fine. Rats, actually quite cute.

2. Computer's killing my stories. I had a scare with this on Wednesday. I put my USB stick with all my stories on my lap top. Opened a file. All I got was little y symbols with two dots on top. The whole story had turned into page after page of that symbol. Opened another file. The same. And another file, and another file. Then I started to panic. I was sure I lost everything. I just knew I had a virus that had eaten all my files and (because that's the kind of thing that runs through your mind at moments like this) the virus had obviously spread to all the backups.

Actually, there is no virus. No idea why but my USB stick has decided it just doesn't like the USB port on my lap top. I managed to recover all the files via the desk top PC without too much of a problem - once I calmed down enough to try that. The new USB works fine. But for that hour or so... well, I now have every story I've ever written backed up on three computers, two memory sticks and the internet. I'm not going through that again.

3. Sending stories off. I don't know if it gets easier the more you do it, but I doubt it. There's just something incredibly terrifying about sending a story off to an editor and waiting for their verdict. It's not the editors fault (my editor couldn't be more lovely). But once you hit send and the story is out there to be read, there's a shiver that runs down your spine. This is closely followed by having to check your e-mails every five minutes - even if there is no logical reason to think there's a response there :)

4. Not actually being any good. I think this one is something any writer (or anyone who does anything creative) can relate to. Every time anyone tries to create anything, they run the risk of screwing it up. I'm sure there's a quote out there that sums this up perfectly, but I can't for the life of me remember it.

5. And that just leaves the big stuff. The things that anyone in their right mind is scared of. It's also, coincidentally the kind of things I often throw at my characters. I read a bit of writing advice a while ago that said something along the lines of - work out your character's biggest fear and then make it happen to them.

At the time, I thought that was a really horrible way to write a book. But as I've written more I realised sometimes (not all the time, but sometimes) that's what makes the book work. Sometimes the character has to risk the worse thing that can ever happen to them in order to get what they want. They have to take leaps of faith on the way to their happy ending.

And that's the five. If anyone wants to comment about what scares them, feel free :)

In other news.

My author page on TEB is up and running. Nothing on sale yet, but I'm still incredibly excited about that. Here it is:

Kim Dare --- Total-E-Bound Erotic Romance Ebooks

Something else I'm excited about - Turquoise and Leather is now officially the first book in a series of novellas called Collared. No prizes for guessing the theme of the series, lol. I have the second in the series written already. I'm going to edit and sub it next month. I'm putting together a series blurb at the moment - I'll post it when it makes sense.

What else? Time Out is slowly coming together. There are bits of the original that can be salvages, but not a lot. I'm enjoying re-writing it anyway. Part of what makes this one more difficult to write than the others in the Perfect Timing series is, I have another series in the works that the main characters from Time Out are going to feature in, so I have to keep in mind what they are going to get up to after they find their happy ending too.

And Whispers will be coming together too - just as soon as I stop talking on here and get back to editing it :)