Tag Archives: writing

Road Trip, Day I-Don’t-Have-Time-To Count

What’s that old saying, “Two steps forward, one step back?” Well, that’s my route today.

Step Forward: Finished the formatting (first pass, as it turns out–see Step Back below) this morning! Yay, me!

Step Back: Did spell-check of whole document and was aggravated to find several problems. Really, Julia? What the hell is “fotlooseeeeee?” Think I must’ve nodded off and hit the keyboard. Grr. But…

Step Forward: Inserted ISBN number (after a brief clarification call to their Help Desk–surprisingly helpful!) Now I’m official!

Step Forward: Converted file for Web-htm (yay!) and worked my way through Kindle’s KDP publishing steps, including description, cover image (beautiful!), contributors (thanks, Connie) and so forth, right up to uploading my book and downloading the Preview Your Book feature! Yay! Hang on…

Um…wtf?

Table of contents alignment did not convert properly, nor did my margins!

Giant. Freaking. Step. Backward.

Sigh.

Will have to sit down now, try to figure out what happened in my original doc, resave for Web, etc., etc., etc. Tomorrow, since I’m out of time for today.

But hey, at least I got to see what it would look like before it went live, which was awesome, and which means I’m getting closer.

Step Forward.

Step Back.

Step Forward.

Step Back.

Now, everybody–cha cha cha!

Stay tuned, it’s getting closer!

 

Road Trip, Day Six

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Sorry about the lack of updates–weekends aren’t the best time for me to make any headway, so I’m spending some time playing catch-up now.

Day 6 finds me closing in on the formatting of Widow Woman, Chapter 17 . I would’ve been farther along, but upon closer inspection of the very earliest chapters I wrote, I discovered that I had been operating with what Smashwords’ style guide calls a “common bad habit of all authors.” Er…I used my space bar in the early chapters to indent, rather than setting up a paragraph style. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you all groaning, but Smashwords says it’s common, so cut me some slack. I have learned my lesson (after seeing dots floating in front of my eyes all weekend, it was inevitable.) I feel like a writers’ Bart Simpson: “I will not use my space bar to indent. I will not use my space bar to indent. I will not use my space bar to indent.”

At any rate, that set me back a bit of time to go back and address all of that. But the important thing is that it’s all cleaned up now and I’m back to chugging along at a good pace. If I keep this up, I might just be finished within the week. Finished. Was there ever a more satisfying word?

Also received some preliminary cover art from my designer–chose my favorite of 3 renditions, asked for a slight hue adjustment, and am so excited at how it has turned out. I haven’t signed off on it yet, however. I’m pretty cautious when it comes to weighty decisions, and I think the cover art falls precisely into that category, so while I’m relatively certain it’s a go, I’m not ready to push the button just yet. Mostly, I think it’s just that I want to look at the cover design some more, to roll it around in my mind, ponder it…savor it.

Keeping the countdown rolling.

Let The Countdown Begin…Tomorrow

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Per advice from Kristen Brown’s forthcoming book, The Happy Hour Effect, I am going public with my self-imposed deadline to publish (digital-only) Widow Woman. To paraphrase her theory, a public deadline makes you accountable. We’ll see. All I know is I feel I’m finally ready.

If you watched my interview, you know I’m a little nervous about the technology aspect of self-publishing, but I’ve come this far, I can’t stop now. So–I’ve got a few guidebooks on hand and I’ve begun working on the formatting. (Just between you and me: I hate this part. It is the antithesis of creativity. But it’s standing between me and finishing this book off so I can move on to the next two waiting in the wings.)

Beginning tomorrow, I’m hoping to give you short, regular updates throughout the next month so you can follow my progress–any encouraging comments or helpful tips would be greatly appreciated, since (as my loyal readers know), I’m working with a high learning curve.

Here we go!

Course Correction

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For those of you who don’t already know, this post contains some surprising news: I resigned from my job. Yes, my new job, the one I started just a few short months ago.

It should have been obvious from my last post that the work-life balance was something with which I was struggling. It wasn’t the job–I truly did love it–but rather a combination of things, a laundry list of difficulties I should have seen coming but didn’t. Or, to be rather more honest about it, I saw them coming, but thought I could manage them. Long commute, family demands, less flexibility than I needed–a perfect storm of unsustainability for me. So after long thought, no small amount of prayer, wise counsel from my husband and others, I made the difficult decision to resign. I’m fortunate in that the split has been more amicable than I could have dreamed, though the parting last week was, nonetheless, bittersweet. I will miss the people and the work more than I would have expected.

But as one of my (now former) colleagues said on my last day, “It’s a wise woman who knows her own path.” Don’t know how true it is, but I’m hoping that I’m on the right one now.

Lots happening this week: my interview for the cable program  “It’s A Woman’s World” is airing today (MCN6, for those of you in theTwin Cities’ 7-county metro area, at 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.; it’ll also run on July 23, same times; for St. Paul viewers, cable channel 15 on Thursday, July 19 and 26 at 6:30 p.m.); after it airs, it’ll be posted to YouTube and my website. So that’s exciting and scary simultaneously.

Speaking of my website, I just completed a speed-of-light overhaul, which was sorely needed. I used a do-it-yourself template service, since speed and a zero-coding requirement were critical factors. It’s not fancy, doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it’s eminently more readable and far less user-unfriendly (all right, I’ll call a spade a spade: user-hostile):  https://justscribbling.com/.

I’m also being invited to work on a number of projects that have popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, during the last few days, opportunities that are not only enormously flattering but also reassuring that the events of the last few months were not mistakes, only course corrections.

At any rate, you should be hearing from me a little more often now–hopefully you think that’s a good thing, because I know I do. Stay tuned!