You know the old saying about how the best way to get something done is to give the job to a really busy person? I’m changing that saying to “This busy person’s office door is closed–effective immediately.”

Also need to give out the warning that this blog post is a little longer than I like, but it contains a lot of new information, and I hope it is more than a little interesting to boot 🙂

Earlier this week, ORGANIZED FOR SCHEDULED SABOTAGE hit all the online bookseller shelves. Hooray! More exciting is that I got it out despite the fact my workhorse computer died September 28th. The laptop had been acting persnickety for about a month but seemed to rally each time I sweet talked it and promised that rest time was coming soon. My family also had a big emergency during this same time and we had to do some unexpected traveling (and travel spending), so I just tried coaxing the computer into not being so ornery. It was only a couple of years old–much too soon to replace, I thought. The computer thought differently, and instead, I woke up the morning of the 28th and found the laptop was no longer in sleep mode, but rather in the Big Sleep. I had to resurrect from hibernation the older one it replaced–the really slow one that still ran Windows 7.0–update all the updates I’d let it ignore as it rested in the desk drawer, all to get the final version of the Organized for Scheduled Sabotage into all the formats I needed to get it available by release day (and you thought all authors did was write books and hang out on social media–LOL!).

Seriously, by about October 12th I felt more than a little like Jack Bauer in 24. I was looking for new traps everywhere.

Thanks to the help of a friend, this week a new Acer joined our household, and when I’m not cursing Windows 10 (I was really happy with Windows 8.1), I’ve been getting to know this little wonder, downloading all the subscription software I use on a daily basis, and adding new files from backups as needed.

In all of those misadventures, the book eventually got online at all the booksellers (yea!), but since all non-Amazon bookstores came on later, the special $1.99 pricing on the New Release has been extended until Sunday to make sure everyone has a chance to grab a bargain on this title. Here’s the Amazon buy link, and a second link–Books2Read–that will allow you to pick any of the other bookstores that carry this book–just click the bookseller’s icon on the page and the link will shoot you right out to the book page on your bookseller of choice. I love this idea, and it keeps your choice automatically so the next time you encounter a Books2Read link it will automatically direct you to the right store for your ereader. How cool it that?  Anyway, here are the quick buy links.

Amazon:  http://smarturl.it/O4SSnr

All other booksellers: https://www.books2read.com/u/mgrjWD

One casualty of the dead computer seems to be my newsletter. I found out in early September my newsletter mailing list was kind of scrambled and dropped by my mail service. They had no way to fix their problem, but I didn’t panic right away. I had it backed up…backed up on the computer that died, of course. Well, in pieces, anyway–but I hadn’t yet put the pieces together, and now that I need it to put out a newsletter, of course, I only have a couple of the pieces of the list. So if you don’t get a newsletter from me by tomorrow, please consider signing up again, as I did not mean for anyone to get dropped off the list.

Honestly, I would never go back to a time when I didn’t have my laptop as pretty much an extension of my right hand. But for the last 45 days or so, computers have created as much new work as they’ve saved me.

Now, I’m working on the initial edits of the next Bodies of Art Mystery. I would offer the title, but I’m still arguing with myself over that one, too. I’ve had a working title all along, but it’s one I think would better serve a book later in the series. So, for now, I’m still searching for the best option. I have one of the words, I just have to figure out the other to use. Who would think a two-word title could be so challenging? Right?

But the good news is that despite not having a firm title yet, book #5 of the Bodies of Art Mysteries is on the publishing schedule to debut the last week in June 2018. And at the end of Organized for Scheduled Sabotage is an excerpt of the next book in the Organized Mysteries series which will be released in February 2018. Plus, I have the first in a new cozy series drafted too, so there will be a third book with new characters coming out in 2018.

Finally, I want to give a little info on how Organized for Scheduled Sabotage came to be. A wonderful friend…I’ll call her Carolyn Haines (wink, wink)…thought it would be fun for Kate and Meg to be involved in a job where they had to organize an author who wrote yearly organization calendars, but who (just maybe) wasn’t as organized as her calendars implied. Well, since this good friend…Carolyn…has her own animal rescue, instead of the character being disorganized, I made the main character, Liz, just a very committed, very busy woman with a lot of irons in the fire–including an animal rescue farm where she took care of every kind of animal. I was even able to incorporate the four miniature goats my father used to raise (I miss those little cuties so much. I have so many goat stories I could share. Trust me). Being able to incorporate Kate’s minor phobias with the animals was a lot of fun, and I loved being able see Meg step up whenever Kate needed backup. This friendship is one of the things I love about writing the Organized Mysteries series. I also love writing the interactions between Kate and her husband Keith. The kids (both human and goats) are an added benefit. And I love watching Kate & Meg solve the murder each time. It doesn’t always feel like work. Can’t wait to get the next one polished up and out for everyone to read, but in the meantime be sure to read the first chapter that’s excerpted at the end of Organized for Scheduled Sabotage.

Happy reading, everyone!