Time slipping away

It's Wednesday night here, although I'm in total denial about that. Where did Tuesday go? I think this week skipped Tuesday and we just didn't notice, it already being a short week and all. I wish we did skip tuesday, as in truth Tuesday was a bad day at work for me, it's got me re-thinking my work choices. Sadly, given that I'm not as yet earning any money as a writer, I have to earn my living in a regular job. A few months ago I changed my job and went into property management thinking that it would be an interesting choice. Really, it wasn't one of my best decisions. While no decision is a total failure - everything is fodder to a writer - I do think that I need to find something else.

So today I thought I would research work from home possibilities, of which there are a seemingly unlimited number when you start looking. Sadly, legitimate work from home positions are rather thinner on the ground. Basically I have wasted many hours and got pretty much nowhere. Worse, I didn't do anything about formatting my book today. Well I did do something. I read the information and made a decision but I have yet to implement this decision.

There comes a time when it only makes sense to outsource. Formatting this book is one of those times. I can get it done at a very reasonable rate and that will free my time so that I can focus on the list of publicity things I am supposed to do. That list grew while I was looking for professional formatters and found more advice from Smashwords. Since I will be uploading to Smashwords I trust that the list of people who will format manuscripts into ebooks is a reliable one. Likewise I trust that a booklet of tips (free) from Smashwords is also reliable and useful and I should probably take on board the advice and apply it.

The good thing about all of this, and the thing that I remind myself frequently, is that having done this once, it should be much quicker and easier for all forthcoming books. And there will be forthcoming books. I have four more waiting not very patiently to be written. But first things first, get this book published and stop going off onto tangents!

My apologies to anyone who looked for a blog yesterday since I didn't write one. I will try not to skip a day again, or at least let you know if I intend to.

Sometimes my tangents lead me to interesting results. I will attach a photo of where a broken terracotta pot and the disinclination to write led me to one weekend about a month ago :)

Easter Monday, which means...

Today is Easter Monday afternoon here in the Southern Hemisphere. This means that the 4 day weekend is almost over for me :( Back to work tomorrow, sigh. This also means that I had better get a move on with all the things I planned to do at the start of this 4 day break. It seems like such a long time at the start, but it's some sort of law of nature that the 4 day weekend passes much quicker than 2 full working weeks.

Hence I have not accomplished everything I planned to do and really I don't know why I'm surprised - I never do. Perhaps I should just congratulate myself on my truly outstanding procrastination ability, it never lets me down! So the spare room is still not cleaned (sorry university child who has to sleep in this room when he comes home, I'll try to get it done before then), I still have not learned how to format the book which is something I really have to rectify and I will do so as soon as I finish writing this - I'll let you know how that goes tomorrow :)

I have however planted those bushes I had to put in the ground - a dwarf mulberry, a blackberry (not sure how that will go in the tropics) and a tea bush that my youngest insisted I purchase so I can make my own tea (!). I've also levelled a big chunk of dirt that was carelessly piled up when a drain was dug around the shed at the height of the wet season (to ask the water very nicely to flow around the shed and not into it) and which was then left to break down on its own. Not surprisingly it steadfastly refused to do this. Dirt can be very stubborn.

But I have run out of time, so now I must start formatting this book, and I hope it's not too painful. I don't hold out a great deal of hope, since every step along the way so far has been quite painful. But I digress, as I do frequently and well.

The next step in self publishing is to create an author blog and actually write blogs - sadly there was no direction on exactly what to write, so I have just let my fingers choose the story to tell in each blog and I hope it is entertaining. The idea behind every author blog of course is to build up a social network and to build interest in the author's work. I am still not sure how successful this will be for me, as  I am a new author and this is a new blog and it takes time to build up an audience.

But I am also a writer and so I like to write, and I am finding these short little blogs very enjoyable. The thing with writing a book is that it takes a long time, with a great deal of rewriting and editing before it is finished. Writing this blog gives a kind of instant gratification that is new to me. Setting up the blog is another story altogether.

I'm a total newbie to blogs, I've never written one before and read only a few and those I've read I've paid zero attention to the origins of said blogs. So I had no idea how to start a blog, and I was quite fed up, what with wrestling with the cover for so long. So I asked my super cool sister for help (I will admit I was kind of hoping she would make a webpage for me, for free - sorry Ellen). Anyway she suggested a google blog and sent me the link, and as she knows her way around computers and programmes probably felt quite satisfied that she had done enough.

I very quickly became SUPER frustrated, it is so annoying, sorry Google and all, but your blogs are NOT EASY to set up - at least for me when I am already irritated. But finally, after almost throwing the laptop out the door more than once, slamming it shut more than once, shouting at the screen more than once (definitely good for releasing tension that), I did manage to get this blog up and running. It's not perfect - more than one person has told me that they can't comment on it which is annoying and which I have no idea how to rectify. If anyone knows how to rectify it please feel free to let me know - oh wait, you can't comment. Well send me a message on Facebook. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/sherylsmithwick. Seriously, if you know how to enable comments on google blogger let me know - I've already made it so anyone can comment, but apparently nobody can.
I'll leave you today with a photo of my gardening efforts, which in truth look pretty paltry but which took a lot of muscle power!