Accountability Wednesdays: Week 16

Before I get started today, I want to send out a belated “Happy Easter!” to all those who celebrate the holiday, and I hope you had a good one! This Easter was the first one that I really got to celebrate with my daughter since she was too young to understand what it was about the first two years, and last year I was working on the other side of the country during the holiday. Since I had the opportunity I staged a little egg hunt with goodies (cream eggs, M&M’s, mini-eggs, and little plastic bracelets) in plastic eggs. It was too fun watching her run around looking for the eggs, sometimes staring right at them and walking past. She also got a Build-a-Bear Fluttershy (My Little Pony) from us, which was the first thing she ran right for, which of course made my heart melt. Throw in some books and candy and a couple of games for her LeapPad from the grandparents, and the little missy had quite a lovely day, and therefore so did I. Little joys, my friends. Little joys.

Also, decorating eggs is a necessity! 😀

And now that I’ve thoroughly cleansed your pallet, it’s time to muck it up with a week’s worth of failure. o.o

Goal #1: Lose ten pounds and become healthier overall.

On the upside of things, I weighed myself this morning and I am almost three pounds lighter than I was when I had my meltdown last week. I’m not exactly sure how that happened, or whether either of those two weigh-in’s was accurate, because it doesn’t seem likely that I lost three pounds in one week without doing anything at all. But for now, I’ll take it.

The bad side of things is that I had an awful week for poor eating, due in part to the Easter holiday. I mean, come on, chocolate was everywhere. I also had a lot more pop than I should have, so I’m reasserting myself to avoid it this week. Water, water, water…maybe if I repeat it enough times I’ll start to enjoy drinking it. lol

The other bad side of things is that I did almost zero activity last week. I hopped on the treadmill once, and that was it. My FitBit should seriously have some kind of shock function that fills me full of voltage if I get fewer than so many steps in a day. >.>

But there is another upside! Kinda. See, I’ve got a plan. My plan partially hinges on the weather not being an ass, but it’s a plan none-the-less. I broke out an old book I’ve got called “Buff Brides” that I used when I was trying to lose weight for my wedding. It’s actually a pretty nice program, laid out in a simple-to-understand “do this on this day” system, and it helped me last time so I figure it can help me this time. The program involves weight training three days a week, starting with simple exercises that neither take too much time nor beat you out so that you end up quitting right away. It also encourages three days a week worth of cardio, so I’m going to hike up my britches, pay that my stomach holds itself together until the doctor’s can give me a more definitive answer about my gastronomic issues, and start my Zombies! Run! app again. I hope to start my new plan this Sunday – starting with a Zombies! run – but I’m not committing to it for certain because I’ve got some other things to deal with between now and then. If not this Sunday, it’ll be the following Sunday. Hold me accountable, people! Ask me how I’m doing and yell at me if I say anything other than “Great!”

Goal #2: Be more active on social media and work hard on my “author platform”.

This week was much like the previous week. I’ve been doing pretty well with Facebook and the blogging community, interacting and getting conversations going and the like. Twitter is my weak point and I’m not really sure what to do about it. For some reason it feels like a lot of extra effort to add that one site to my daily routine, and I think it’s because I can never think of anything to say that I can compress into less than 140 characters. I’m just too wordy, I guess. 😛

Goal #3: COMPLETE my zombie apocalypse novel, Nowhere to Hide.

This is the crux of my failure right here. I keep telling myself that I’m going to work on it, and I keep daydreaming about what it will be like when I’m 100% done and sending the file to Create Space, and yet it never happens. Partially my problem is a mixture of laziness and lethargy – I’ve been very badly obsessed with sitting on my ass and playing video games the past while – but at least part of the problem is good-old-fashioned fear. I long to have my book finished and published, but I also fear it. It’s that stupid human way of fearing both failure and success simultaneously. What is wrong with the human mind? A great many things, it would seem.

That said, I stand before you now (or rather, sit behind my side of the computer screen) and swear to you all that I am going to get something done toward this goal this week. Even if it’s just to go through and fix the invisible typos that my beta-reader pointed out, I will do something this week, I promise.

Goal #4: Write 500,000 words.

You know what? I’ve changed my mind. This is the crux of my failure. If there’s one thing that I know for sure that a writer has to do, it’s write. We have to write, write, and write some more, and then have a couple of cups of coffee and keep writing. I have completely failed this aspect of writer-dom during the month of April. I figured – I really did – that if I wrote and scheduled all my A to Z Challenge posts in advance, then I would have tons of time to write other things throughout April without having to worry about the blog. Technically that did happen. I’ve had time to write. I just haven’t been using it. I completely wasted three weeks of not having to worry about writing blog posts by completely failing to write anything else. This past week the only thing I wrote – literally, the only thing that wasn’t a Facebook status or a comment reply – was last week’s accountability post…for a grand total of 875 words. The really sad thing? That was actually a better total than last week.

So my second promise for this week is to write something every day, even if it’s just a couple hundred words of nonsense. This complete and utter laziness toward writing has got to stop. How can I ever consider myself a professional writer if I don’t write?

Dear lord, my head!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve been considering using CreateSpace to self-publish my zombie novel. I’ve been reconsidering that stance lately for a few reasons. One is that as it turns out you have to jump some hoops if you’re a Canadian because CreateSpace claims tax for the IRS. Another reason is that it just plain seems like a more impressive accomplishment to be published by an actual publishing company. It’s like being accepted to university…you feel somehow better about yourself than if you’d just decided to take one of those online “become _____ in only _____ weeks!” courses.

But here’s the thing…I’ve been looking into how you submit a manuscript. I’ve been looking into it in depth. And my head seriously feels like it may explode. It’s not that submitting a manuscript is, in theory, that complicated. The problem is that the publishers make it complicated by each having their own set of rules and regulations. Some want the manuscript emailed in a Word document format, others want it printed and mailed to them. Some want the full, completed manuscript while others just want a synopsis and an excerpt. Some don’t allow you to submit to anyone else while they’re looking at your manuscript (this is one I can’t stand) while others couldn’t care less. Some are only looking to do print books, some are only looking to do ebooks, some are looking to do both, and they all have their own rules about what you can do regarding the formats they don’t plan to use. And they all seem to have their own version of how the manuscript and your query letter should be formatted, and they have the right to basically throw your manuscript away if you haven’t formatted it properly.

For example, one publisher I’m looking at that deals in a lot of horror stories wants the manuscript emailed, in full, in a Word document, double spaced, justified format, with a particular type of title page and author info page. They don’t care if you submit to other publishers at the same time. They’re only looking to print in ebook format and don’t care if you want to use another venue to do print books. They estimate 30 days to get back to you on whether or not they’re interested.

Another publisher I’m looking at wants the manuscript printed and mailed to them. They have their own formatting rules that are different from the publisher above. They only allow you to submit to them, and if they find out you’ve submitted to someone else at the same time, your manuscript is automatically tossed out. They’re only looking to do print books, but they don’t allow you to do ebook format with another venue while you’re under contract with them. They estimate 90 days to get back to on whether or not they’re interested.

Now, looking at those two publishers, you’d think the first one is the more attractive-looking one. They get back to you quicker, allow you more freedoms, etc. But here’s the caveat….they pay a lot less. Their estimate for an advance and royalties is considerably less than the second publisher. So then you have to try and decide, would you rather have a better chance of getting published, or have a better chance of actually making some money when you get published?

It’s a surprisingly difficult decision. Yes, just getting published is more important to me, but it’s also hard to look at the differences in possible monetary compensation and feel good about choosing the lesser. It’s no different than any other job…you want to have some fun and freedom in your workplace, but a higher paycheck definitely makes it easier to deal with a little bull, if you know what I mean.

So now that I’ve done a bunch of research, read a ton of submission guidelines, and made my head thoroughly angry at me, I believe I’ve come to a very important conclusion about how to publish my book.

That is: “Stop worrying about the publishing details until you finish the damn thing already!“

Good advice, me. Good advice.