Grieving my dog Charlie and barely functioning through my son’s graduation, I finally returned to my computer—only to find my worst writing nightmare. Someone had tried to hack my system, not for my personal info, but for my WIP files. Pages missing, formatting broken, entire sections corrupted. It wasn’t a glitch. It was deliberate. Now I’m rebuilding every manuscript from the ground up.

Spring in Florida wakes everything up fast — the yard, the garden, and my creativity. While my three teenage boys handled the heavy lifting, I spent the week tending plants, clearing space, and realizing my stories needed the same kind of pruning. A little yard work, a little desk cleanup, and suddenly Book 3 feels ready to grow again.

Two months without a working printer derailed my entire indie‑author workflow — from cover art to daily operations. After a broken “replacement,” a refurbished offer, and a full contract reset, I’m finally getting a real printer and getting Book 3 back on track. Here’s the saga behind the chaos.

My six‑year‑old printer started failing in mid‑March and died completely by early April, taking my scanner—and my Book 3 cover timeline—with it. Nearly two months without a working printer has stalled everything, from shipping labels to school essays to digitizing my cover art. A broken replacement from HP only added to the chaos, but a new printer is finally on the way.