Author Override is the place where authors take the reins and take you on a journey into their world. Some may allow you into their private writing dens. Others may take you along with them on research trips or interviews. Whatever the case may be, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride because here you’ll get an in-depth look into an author’s musings.
Murphy’s Release Day
by Lynn Viehl
I’ve been seriously considering changing my surname to Murphy, after the old adage that says whatever can go wrong will go wrong. That law loves me, and has particularly vicious timing, as it always kicks in whenever I have a new novel release. To date during release week I’ve had things like food poisoning, pneumonia, and the flu. One year I broke my foot falling down a flight of stairs on the way to a book signing. I’ve also burned up three computers, got into a car accident, hunkered down through four consecutive hurricanes, and almost lost my house twice, once to a tornado and again to a raging wildfire (made the NY Times bestseller list for the first time during that one.)
Considering my history I wasn’t exactly surprised when I went in for a routine check-up on the Friday before my new release day and my doctor told me that I had a problem with my jaw that required immediate treatment. Nor did I bat an eyelash when he said I’d have to have the procedure done on the day before my new novel Nightborn came out. I didn’t even complain when he advised me that without meds I’d be in a considerable amount of pain for the following week. I figured that was just my bad luck kicking in, and since the procedure required only local anesthetic I’d be okay.
I was okay, too, until halfway through that procedure, when I had a bad reaction to the epinephrine in the local. Imagine feeling like you’re having a heart attack, a seizure and a massive anxiety attack all at the same time – that kind of bad. Once it was over, my reaction meant I had to go through the remaining two hours of this rather painful procedure without any anesthetic.
Happily I have a high threshold for pain, and went home with a huge bottle of meds, which I soon discovered made me so nauseated I couldn’t take them and keep any food down. Not that I could eat anything that wouldn’t pass through a straw anyway. I trashed the meds and went to bed, where I discovered I was only comfortable sitting up, and of course I can’t sleep sitting up.
The next morning when I crawled out of bed I looked and felt like I’d gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson, which meant canceling a celebratory luncheon with some friends. There are just some things Cover Girl can’t cover. So I hunkered down to spend my release day with an ice pack, a bottle of ibuprofen and all the Jell-O I could slurp.
I always try to learn something from my experiences with bad luck, which is why I now know that Campbell’s only puts seven tiny little noodles in those instant cup-of-soup mixes, and that vanilla-swirled chocolate pudding doesn’t taste like anything but chocolate so the vanilla is completely wasted. Also, as much as you want pretzels, and however small the pieces are that you break them into, you cannot consume pretzels without chewing at some point. But I’d survived and I was on the mend, and after checking the weather channel several times to see if any hurricanes, tornadoes or wildfires were bearing down on my house, I finally let myself relax a little. It was over; my bad luck had exhausted itself.
My pup Cole came over to cuddle with me on the sofa, and gave me the most adorable, sorrowful look. It made me marvel at how sensitive our pets are to our suffering – at least until he made a strange noise and puked all over me.
I don’t know what I’m going to do for my next release day, but maybe I can escape my bad luck. The international space station couldn’t be that easy to knock out of orbit and crash into the planet, right?
Nightborn
(Lords of the Darkyn # 1)
The High Lord of the Immortal Darkyn has sent his most trusted warrior, Korvel, to retrieve a coveted scroll that's rumored to contain maps to Templar treasures and the secrets to eternal life. Uniting with Korvel to recover the dangerous artifact is Simone Derien, the daughter of the scroll's guardian, and a woman with many deadly secrets...
A white and black floral tote bag
A signed copy of Nightborn
A blank journal with a slumbering maiden on the cover
A pretty pink pen (benefiting breast cancer research)
A lampwork bead edition of my BookLoop
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