Saying Good-Bye to a Good Year

Well, here we are again, another year behind us.  I don't want this to be another one of those typical 'year-end' blogs, but, let's face it...the end of anything causes us to contemplate what was.  It's a death of sorts.  Whether it's one we celebrate or mourn is entirely up to us.

Most notably for me this year, was publishing my book, Finding My Escape.  In fact, just finishing the book seemed like quite a milestone.  I wrote a book!  I'm amazed to just see the words in print.  On the down side, I can't seem to get going on the sequel.  Oh, well...something to push for in 2012.

I didn't keep off the weight I lost for my class reunion, or keep up my daily journaling and Bible study, or stick to my cleaning regimen.  Actually, I'm not overly upset about the third one. 

I missed my dad terribly (he died in June 2010).  He never got to read my book, and he was actually my biggest cheerleader.  I also said good-bye to one of the dearest old friends of my youth, and shared in the grief of several friends who lost loved ones.

On the plus side, I reconnected and kept in touch with a slew of old friends and even managed to make some new ones.  I undertook a challenge by an actor friend of mine to write a monologue and dreamed of writing bigger things.

So yes, I guess I'm feeling reflective, which isn't exactly an imaginitive way to spend the last hours of an old year.

A New Direction

I started this blog about a year ago to chronicle my journey of writing.  Well, let's be honest, what I really wanted was to use the blog to promote my writing.  I was very careful about what I wrote, trying not to step on any toes, but the fact of the matter is, that's no way to live, and it's certainly no way to write.

I do love to write, and I call myself an author, but ultimately, who I want to be...who I strive to be... is a follower of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I haven't mentioned that in any of my blogs heretofore, and that's why I feel like I sold out.  Sold Him out.  How can I be honest about myself if I don't acknowledge what is the very core of my existence.

I want to share Truth with my readers.  I want to share Who Jesus is to me.  I recently ran across the book, Radical, by David Platt.  This book has challenged me to examine what it means to be a Christ follower.  I'm sure many of you have run across people who claim to come in Christ's name who have been rude, inconsiderate, or just plain obtuse.  I confess, I've probably been one of them, and I'm ashamed to admit that too many times, I've put myself first instead of Him.  I've called on Christ's name, but spat (metaphorically) on those He died for.  That's abominable.

This Jesus, who came to this earth to bring God down to us, deserves better.  Those He died for deserve better.  It's not about "turning over a new leaf".  It's about turning away from who I am to who He is. 

Please join me.

Taking the Mystery Out of Formatting

When I began entertaining the idea of self-publishing my novel Finding My Escape, the one aspect out of the whole process that daunted me the most was the idea of formatting for the various e-reading devices.  Writing I could do.  It's my passion.  I wasn't overly concerned about editing or proofreading.  My mother was a high school English teacher with a strong understanding of the elements of style.  I wasn't even overly worried about marketing the book.  But formatting?  Major dread.

So there my book sat, completed, edited, re-edited, proofread, re-proofread.  I even paid an artist, to do an awesome cover.  (Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.)

I'd run out of excuses.  There was nothing left to do (unless I wanted to try to publish traditionally, but that's an entirely different topic).  So I set myself a deadline.  August 15.  My late father's birthday.  *sigh*  That was two weeks ago.  In that two weeks, I talked about formatting, I posted about formatting, I complained about formatting, but did absolutely nothing toward getting the book ready to e-publish.

Friday the 12th rolls around, and I drag out every paper and e-book I have that has anything on the subject of self-publishing.  I picked up Zoe Winter's Becoming An Indie Author (on my Nook, of course), and zipped to the section on Smashwords and read it.  Twice.

Okay, I thought, you can do this.  I went to the Smashwords site, and followed every single instruction about unformatting and reformatting my book (which BTW are very detailed and written in easy-for-a-non-techy-to-understand English).  I read with trepidation, the list of formatting problems that could cause your book to be rejected.  After about three hours of cleaning up bad tabs, straight quotation marks, and page breaks, the manuscript was ready.  I took a deep breath and pressed send.  About ten minutes later the results came back.  Rejected.

What?  Rejected?  After I scraped myself from the ceiling, I scrolled down the list of possible problems and found:  Font size exceeds 18.  The only font that could have possibly exceeded the suggested 18 point was the title.  I changed that to 18 and pushed send again.  Accepted!

So here's the point.  I'd spent weeks months postponing publishing my book because I was terrified by the thought of formatting it.  When I actually sat down to do it, it turned out to be no big deal.

So what's holding you back from completing your goal?  Is it fear?  Why not dig in, face the situation, and take the mystery out of it.  You'll be glad you did.