Pulsating to the Backbeat

  Done. Man, this book was an uphill battle every step of way. Part of it was my own fault for putting the pressure on, not only setting a deadline, but announcing it to everyone. I over-estimated how much time I would have to work on things, not leaving room for procrastination, time for myself, and other unforeseen circumstances, and I was not nearly as prepared as I was the last time around.
    Having a blog makes you feel like you need to tell people things, like when your book is coming out. The accountability factor can be motivational and helpful, but in reality, there probably wouldn't be an uproar if the book came out two weeks after I originally said it would.
    I also ran into a problem with the Kindle version--Amazon has connected CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing so that CreateSpace will send your files over to KDP after your book files have been approved. You'd think that would make it more convenient, right? Wrong.
    They used to accept only Word documents, maybe HTML, and .mobi files for KDP and the website would convert the files to .mobi if need be. It wasn't perfect, but it did pretty well considering it was done by a machine and not a human. I send those files to myself to view on my Kindle Fire to make sure they look all right for the most part, and if not, I can edit the Word file to fix whatever doesn't look right, and reupload it and have KDP convert it again. KDP only takes about 6-12 hours to approve the files and publish them on the website, so if you have to make changes, you can usually upload the file the night before and it'll be back online in the morning.
    This time, I learned that KDP accepts PDFs to convert, too, and that's what CreateSpace gave me to upload to Kindle. I figured it's THEIR file--it should convert with no problem. Wrong again. When I pulled that document up on my Kindle, I couldn't believe how ridiculous it looked. There were no tab indents on the paragraphs, and perhaps worse, the conversion had broken up some paragraphs so that it looked a little like this:

The quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy
dog.

    Why would they allow you to upload a file that can't even keep paragraphs together? Ereader files are basically supposed to read like an HTML file--HTML doesn't break paragraphs up like that unless you specifically tell it to! So, last night, I went through and created my own .doc Word file to upload again. The tab indents were back, the table of contents looked normal, and the lines were all kept together in a paragraph like they're supposed to be.
    There are some nitpicky things I wish I could fix, but I'd have to hire a professional for that, and I'd rather not put any more money into fixing something as small as the size of a tab indent when I'm probably one of the few people out there who is truly bothered by it.
    Anyway, it's been a busy month, to say the least. I finished the files and published them on time as planned, on March 28, though it wasn't until about 2:30 PM. I'm so relieved to have the book finished, but now I get to the promotion part, and I'm not exactly looking forward to the marketing part over the next few weeks and months.
    It's not my strong suit, and I really wish I had more previous success to draw on and apply this time around. That's part of the reason why I'm spending money on professional marketing this time--I figure maybe these people know what they're doing better than I do, or at least I hope they do!--but apparently it takes a while to put together a blog tour so I won't know if it works until a couple months from now.
    Not much else to speak of--I got caught in a blizzard a week ago and scared myself shitless trying to drive home in it. I didn't realize it was going to be that bad or I would have stayed another night where I was. My allergies are doing a lot better now--I've only taken one pill this week and I have a feeling the "symptoms" I was experiencing were due to fatigue from staying up so late to finish my book stuff on time rather than from allergies.
    I'm finally getting back to blogging, so new recaps and I'm hoping a new weekly feature will be coming back to Always Happy to Entertain you soon, and I should be able to post here more regularly as well.

Hey, ho, let's go.

A (Lady) Bug's Life

  Standing in line at Qdoba for lunch, the four of us (my coworkers and I) noticed a ladybug crawling along the cracks in the tile, moving with the line. Apparently, it was a "fake" ladybug, something I didn't even know existed. Apparently, it was a ladybug imposter that looks just like a ladybug only darker. They eat the fruit or the vegetable, while true ladybugs eat the other bugs (aphids) that eat the fruit or vegetable. It occurred to me how evolutionarily advantageous this was. (I actually articulated this, and didn't stumble over the word "evolutionarily".) We watched for a painstaking, horrifying 5 minutes as the ladybug imposter inched closer and closer to the front of the line.
    There was a man at the counter who was shifting his weight and moving his feet around. We avoided the little bugger, but as the bug got closer to the counter (and past his place in line, I might add), it became alarmingly clear that he was probably going to get stepped on, and what's more, it would be the weight-shifting yakker ahead of us who would unknowingly do the deed. And sure enough, ladybug imposter gets closer, closer, and then, weight-shifter shifts again and... SMUSH.
    We had a brief psychological/philosophical discussion about the bug still being alive after getting stepped on, the size of its brain, and whether it was able to feel pain. My inclination was no. The bug may not have died on impact, but what little brains it has surely can't register pain anymore, I thought. Its head is probably the most vulnerable part, and would have probably been crushed more than its back when stepped on. Any life left in it would be reflexes, not neurological commands. I didn't want to get into it, and as we were at the place in line where we could order finally, I didn't have to.
    But, how did the little ladybug imposter get inside the Qdoba? Did he walk, as we saw him doing? Did he fly through the door as it opened? Or did he land on some unsuspecting burrito lover who carried him in? How did he reach his eventual demise? We'll never know, but that's why there are people like me. To imagine a plot in which a ladybug imposter finds himself on the floor at Qdoba.

Ladybug imposter? Bah, humbug.

Creation - Destruction

Thought we'd go with a cheerier topic today. Sort of.
    We'll begin with creation. What does it mean to create? We can procreate. We can germinate plants from seeds. We can write, paint, sculpt, and perform many other artistic endeavors. We cook. We design our outfits and our homes. Even a paper airplane is creation. It's taking something ordinary, like a seed, a lump of clay, or a particularly nasty math assignment, and turning it into something beautiful, useful or enjoyable, like a flower, sculpture or paper airplane. Maybe they don't seem that great to everyone, but we can feel that little bubble of joy that surfaces when we do something new and creative. Creation is a necessary component for many of us to continue to function in a non-hostile way towards everyone else. Creation makes us feel special and important, and sometimes, when we have the compulsion to create, creation is one of the only things that can make us feel normal in the face of chaos, frustration, and things beyond our control.
    As human beings, having a sense of control is a priority. It's evolutionary, in a sense. You lose control, you fall off the cliff and die, or get lost in the woods and eaten by the tiger. Having control over ourselves and our surroundings has gotten to the point where we have black-out shades so we can sleep when it's daylight out, and web browsing on our cell phones so we can always know what the temperature is in Phoenix even though we live in Chicago.
    Having control isn't a bad thing. It gives us a sense of stability in a constantly changing world. Control is useful. But creativity is a greater result of being ego-maniacal control freaks. While being a control freak creates order and stability for you--one person--creativity can affect and give enjoyment to many people. Creativity links us to others outside ourselves in a unique way. And creating positive things, for the benefit of others as well as yourself, can only be a good thing.
     And looking at the other side of things, it is perhaps paradoxical that destruction often gives us the same kind of satisfaction that creation does. Stomping through a pile of dead leaves in Fall is immensely gratuitous and self-serving, destroying the crunchy leaves with our shoes, but we do it anyway. Burning a fire, adding more and more wood, destroying the logs, fiber by fiber, is enjoyable not only for warmth or light, but perhaps also for how amazed we all are once we burned through the whole woodpile, and yet all that remains is a small mound of ashes and mostly destroyed, blackened logs.
    While, semantically, it sounds much better to create than destroy, some things maybe should be destroyed. Atomic weapons, for one. In any case, you should always create, unless your creation causes more harm than good. Like Molotov cocktails. Create positively, and create with the same joy and passion that a child builds a fort out of sofa cushions.

Rome wasn't built in a day.