Gosh, I’d love to find all the people who have written articles about how you can self-publish your book in one day and wring each of their necks. Very, very slowly. I first published The River Within in April. This is October. It’s still not perfect on my Nook – five extra pages and two gaps between paragraphs, but tonight I thought, okay, I can live with that. I think (oh please dear god please dear god) after hiring a professional editor, at least all the typos are out. The formatting….
The formatting is what’s making me alternately homi- and suicidal. Uploaded the “final” version to Kindle and the formatting is worse than when I started in April. None of the Arial font came out (okay on the Nook) and the paragraph breaks (okay on the Nook) are all over the place or non-existant.
I think I will go to my day boss tomorrow and say, “You know what? I’m done writing. It was fun but it’s over. I’ll take that full-time job you’ve always wanted me to take. ” Future posts will be about the thrill of walking behind excavators and bulldozers all day. But at least I know how to do that.
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It might make you feel better to get back to being a writer, Bax. Just a writer, not a publisher. I wish you luck finding your happiness again. Those of us who write, even a day job is not sufficient to keep away the depression of feeling as if we haven’t succeeded when the “business” of writing smushes the happiness we feel writing.
I totally get what you mean about having long periods of time when you seriously consider chewing your leg off. Really. I do. And I also get the boundless thrill and excitement that comes with close proximity to heavy equipment on a daily basis. Still, I really don’t want to consider a world where you no longer write. Selfish of me? Absofreakinlutely. Still, if you choose to walk away, just be aware that I will stalk you relentlessly just to catch tidbits of your grocery list and occasional ‘note to self” post-its . . . even at the risk of being snatched up bald by your lovely wife. Yup, some consequences are completely worth it – your writing is worth it.