I Pushed the Button

My desk is a mess and so is my house. Laundry is waiting to be washed and dried and there's a storm coming, but we're celebrating tonight!

Today's blog is about the less glamorous but equally satisfying journey to get to the point of pushing the button to send my manuscript on its way to becoming a book. The photo shows my first printed version for my editor.

The deadline I'd set to submit my manuscript was October 15th. I'd been getting my illustrations ready and had to do some major changes because I'd created them in CANVA just over a year ago. Imagine a circle and then about 24 small graphics placed one by one around that circle. Add text and arrows and a title. Then imagine changing those graphics. It's very picky, time consuming work causing my right shoulder to seize up. Then because I'd changed the illustrations, I had to change the text in the book and all the places it was mentioned. Thank goodness there weren't many of those.

Next, I wasn't happy with my full page colour pictures of a quote in the front of the book and another at the back. It took probably 2 hours to find the right images, change the text to coordinate with the new images, copy and paste, upload and then look at them in book format to see if I liked the finished product. I liked them. By the end of the evening, I was sore, sneezing and felt the start of a cold coming on. I took some medication and went to bed. Oct. 15th came and went.

Perhaps you're getting a picture of how much work it is to get all the elements of a manuscript together to push the button. I'd had a chat with my contact at Friesen Press yesterday morning and casually mentioned my propensity to write the word 'that' way too many times. He said that he'd make a note of that and would make sure that their editor knew that. That was the easy part. It was like an ear worm. You know the kind that won't leave you alone when you're trying to concentrate or sleep? TV ad jingles are the worst! Anyway, my ear worm was the word, 'that'. That meant I HAD to see how many 'that's' I'd actually written. You won't believe it–exactly 916. That's way too many so I searched for all of them and managed to get that number down to 374 'that's'. I was so pleased with myself. Moving on.

I was behind schedule for pushing the button now, but I had family responsibilities, too. I didn't have to make dinner so I motored on. I did need to drive to do some activities already scheduled with my son at 2pm. Off I went and then that excursion went awry as the place we were picking up dinner from was closed and we hunted for another restaurant to pick up food. We called to see if the other members of our family had any suggestions, but because our home is in a dead zone for phones, we played telephone tag for a half-hour. In the end, we just picked a restaurant on Google and then couldn't find it! When we did find it, we played telephone tag again to find out what they might want at this restaurant. Long story short, it took 3 hours out of my time to get the button pushed. Did I mention I didn't remember the correct time I was supposed to meet my son? I was an hour early. Moving on.

The last thing I did that night was put the manuscript into book form (there's an app for that) and look at it quickly. To my horror, there were spaces where some of the 'that's' were supposed to be. They'd vanished! That meant, I had to start all over again to find and type the missing 'that's'. I was up until 10:30pm fixing that and still didn't finish. Keep in mind, I'd been up at 4:30am that morning. Pushing the button would have to wait until the next day. I stumbled into bed. October 16th came and went.

This morning started early at 5:30am. I did my usual walk and loved seeing the sunrise. I've been pretty careful about my health and trying not to be bionic at my health's expense. Until these last couple of days I managed to have some balance but I'm still fighting a cold. It's only a matter of time before it manifests as disease or goes away but that depends on how I push or don't push myself today. The only thing I really want to do today is push the (expletive) button! Moving on.

Finally, my cruise through my manuscript to find all the missing 'that's' was done. I double-checked the Table of Contents again to make sure all the page numbers were correct. I looked at the Style Sheet once more to make sure I'd made a note of all the special words, phrases, punctuation and formats for the publisher's editor. Done. Ever had a really important event that seems like you'll never get there?

I love writing and spend 35-40 hours a week doing it, but these last two days have been grinders. Out to pick up a couple of things I needed to purchase for supper, then throw in laundry and finish supper. Easy meal, Creamed turkey on toast with peas. All that was left to do was a Structure Sheet/ Timeline but I could submit that tomorrow.

I made a last run through the book to see if I could trim anymore words. I'd heard from published authors that taking words out of their manuscript was helpful so what's left is clear. I can relate to that. When I staged homes for sale, there was a tipping point when if I put one more object or accessory into the room, it would destroy the room's balance. That's what I was doing with my book. If there are too many unnecessary words or phrases, it makes the book read like a cluttered room. I was on the hunt for clutter and cut about 3,000 words.

Finally I was done but I wanted to energetically prepare the manuscript for publication so I had a ceremony of sorts. It is my life's purpose and mission to write about discovering our souls as that's how one starts down the path to loving their lives. Our souls know what our missions are. It knows when we've taken a turn away from that mission and is very diligent in sending reminders. May all who read this book be inspired to turn inward and access their own soul.

The book is a story of my life and the many experiences I enjoyed and didn't enjoy. Trauma affects us in many ways but there is always a nugget of gold, a pearl of wisdom, if we look for it in our traumas. May all who read this book find solace as they entertain the idea that perhaps there is a golden seed of inspiration waiting for them to find as they cope with their trauma.

I talk about my experiences as a young child who was so sensitive, she felt everything around her. She thought that was normal and tried to cope by herself. Inevitably, she couldn't cope and started hiding herself to stay sane. May those who are sensitive or an empath find a kindred spirit in this book that inspires them to look at their sensitivity as a gift and don't need to hide anymore.

I have many hopes for my readers and how this book will impact their lives, but in this ceremony my final act was to set it free. Setting it free meant, to me, it was free to spread its seeds of light and shine in people's lives wherever it goes.

At last, after 2.5 years, my manuscript was off to begin its journey.

I DID IT!

I PUSHED THE BUTTON!