Anyway.
When I saw you last, I was in the middle of a major Freak Out. Tara Tyler had the very cool idea to name my freak outs like how the Weather Channel names winter storms, so I decided that last week's Freak Out shall henceforth be known as Freak Out ABBA because I love ABBA. And I'm not ashamed to admit it!
Anyway.
I like to think that the worst of Freak Out ABBA is over. She's moved out to sea or whatever, and I can begin the recovery process, staring with a review of the goals I set for myself last week, midst freak out.
1. Finish your latest round of edits, and do not (at any point) attach any sort of incendiary devices or accelerant to the manuscript. (note to self: check highlighters for flammable material warnings...)
Done. Two red pens and three highlighters (not an exaggeration) later, it's done, and I am now the not-so-proud owner of a manuscript with pages that look like this:
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Yes, I mean I am glad that I did not actually publish my manuscript with this many stupid errors in it, but I also admit that it's left me feeling a tad stupid and incompetent. And also like I should send out apology letters to anyone who ever had to suffer through these pages. I really am sorry that I didn't have a better handle on things. I should have.
I can tell the exact moment that Irritated M.J. (again, not to be affiliated with Crazy M.J. or Not As Crazy M.J. or any of my other personalities) took over the edits because my margin notes went from things like "This isn't quite right. Please try again" to "Are you trying to kill me?" and "This is quite possibly the worst sentence ever written in any language" (Yes, I am hard on myself. Perhaps too hard on myself, but that's not going to change any time soon.)
But because there is always a silver lining, at least the next draft is bound to be better. Right?
Right???
2. Work out at least three times this week. See if you can't sweat some of this crazy out. (note to self: shoveling snow does not count)
Yeah. I didn't do this. I was in an editing cave all week long, so the only physical exercise I got was shoveling snow. I did tell Callie Leuck that I would begrudgingly count it but only give myself partial credit for doing it, so I'll give myself half credit for this goal.
3. STOP FREAKING OUT. You're doing it for no reason, and it's twisting your stomach into knots and making you not want to eat chocolate, which really doesn't help with the whole not-acting-crazy thing. So cut it out already.
Not really sure where to put this in the success continuum. I don't want to blow my manuscript to smithereens anymore, so that's certainly an improvement. Mostly, I think I'm just too tired to freak out anymore. At least for a while. So hey, let's count it as a win, shall we?
And that sums up last week. Here are my endeavors for this week:
1. Read a book. Maybe two. I haven't read one single book this entire month, and now is the time to change that.
2. Indie ReCon starts on Tuesday. Check it out and take copious notes.
3. Take my niece to the mall and spoil her rotten. Unless her mother is reading this. Then I will definitely not be spoiling her rotten.
4. Implement changes to part one of Effigy. This is approximately 203 pages. No time for dilly dallying. Mall trip aside anyway.
Oh, and one last thing before I go... Andrew Leon has released Part Fifteen of his serial work The Shadow Spinner. You can download it (and a whole bunch of other stuff) for free from Amazon today, so please go check it out!!