In Review

As I type this, my left eye is twitching, my five year old, Lanes, is jumping on the arm of the sofa and landing on my keyboard, and my hassled spouse, P, just walked in the door and is acting like a movie star evading the paparazzi.  Writing this week's blog seems next to impossible.

I have toiled with 'Canadoodling', the book, all week. Every time I try to upload this on CreateSpace (which is what I have to use to self-publish on Amazon), something seems to go wrong. After spending three hours trying to manually insert a table of contents, my tech-guru brother-in-law announced that Word could have done that for me.

P, ever one to second announcements of doom or the obvious, quickly mumbled something about how I should be more proficient with the program or something else charming to that effect.  However, when he was helping me indent the table of contents manually, he never mentioned of this!

I felt like a lazy donkey that got recruited by a bunch of sherpas. It seems like no matter how far I go, the end is never near.  By that time, I had already ordered a proof copy and I thought was well on my way.  Then my brother-in-law planted seeds of doubt in my head about page numbers going wonky and before I knew it, I had to weed through all my work again.

At the end of it all, I was as pleased as punch, because it solved some issues I had with the Kindle version of the book. I couldn't figure out how to make it possible for Kindle viewers to pick which chapter they wanted to go to. The good news was that it turns out this was it.

The bad news was that it messed up the margins for the paperback version. I had to go back and do a manual version of the table of contents. Several headaches later, I had uploaded the book and downloaded a massive migraine.  P suggested Tylenol for that, but I went with ice cream instead.  It's against my 'liver' diet but at that point I was about ready to tell my recalcitrant liver to shove it.

There is not enough time in the day for all I want to do. When Lanes and P are home, it's out of the question.  Between the production and procurement of meals, the constantly overflowing laundry pile and the mandatory one hour walk, I have about two to three good hours to do solid work. 

I have tried valiantly and foolishly to fight with indentations and margins while Lanes is doing the pirouette on a pumpkin and P is rummaging the fridge for my famous chocolate biscuit pudding.  I really need an assistant, a fairy Godmother, or a vacation. Possibly, all three. This stay at home mom thing is rather underrated.

Meanwhile, while I'm feeling frazzled at home, Lanes has been having a fabulous time.  On Sunday, my parents were whisked away to America by my very patient brother-in-law.  I was spared the ‘hydro-theatrics’ (meaning  teledrama style crying) that are usually scheduled for such moments because P had bought tickets to a Wiggles concert. After one old couple were shoved into an equally old van and headed south of the border, I was unceremoniously dispatched with Lanes for the concert and both of us had a fabulous time.

Then came all the excitement about outfits and candy for Halloween. Lanes' school had put out a haunted house in the gym (according to my petite source).  Apparently, she was captured by a clown but she broke free.  Then a 'ghost' tried to swoop in and grab her and her friend. Lanes said she faced the ghost and shouted 'aaaaarrrrrrrg' to it and it got scared. It was simple really.

So superhero Lanes, who I thought couldn't say boo to a ghost, literally just proved me wrong. I was all kinds of proud of her, because I'm the biggest chicken (outfit not included) that I know. I would have gone running for the hills had I been in her shoes.

With that I must sign off and go fight with my Word documents again. I’m sorry this post is late and short, but I’m hoping to have my book out on paperback and on Kindle this weekend!  A sneak preview of the cover is shown on the side bar of this blog! Comments welcome…more musings from BC next week…

Update...I realized I made a huge boo boo when it comes to setting the price for the paperback version of the book. In the land of unicorns and lollipops I obviously hail from, when I saw some of the literature about royalties, I misunderstood it in my stressed out stupor.  After I sold one copy--to my parents nonetheless--I realized that I have found more pennies in our plethora of couches than the amount I made for one sale!

Considering I don't get paid until I make $100, this does not bode well. Sadly, I had to raise the price of the paperback. If I sell two and half, I can get a meal at McDonalds. On the bright side, Kindle is way more economical and hurray for that!

I rolled on the bed melodramatically and tried to throw a pity party for myself. P was a real party pooper, doling out stern warnings about reading through things. In fact, he could have been the bouncer at this 'feel sorry for myself' event. As I flopped to my side so P couldn't see me mocking him, I noticed big black patches of mold on our ceiling. That was the end of the 'woe is me' parade and now I'm about to play with bleach at just past midnight. Good luck to us all!