Whittle the Days Away

I’ve noticed these posts where I talk about myself have been kind of popular lately, so, guess what. You’re going to get another one. I was going to take the day off from the blog today, but then I thought I’d write about my feelings instead. Lucky you.

What’s prompting this sudden burst of familiar revelation is that these past few days, I’ve been feeling a little at a loss. I feel like I’ve wasted, squandered, and otherwise completely threw out two very perfectly good days by not doing anything epic or interesting. I (gasp!) watched consecutive hours of television. I (shock!) munched on chips and chicken nuggets instead of having regular meals. I (horror!) didn’t hop into the shower until about ten in the AM. I lazed about and only nitpicked at my writing projects and barely made any progress on my cleaning, I had the chance to go out and do something and instead wallowed away in my apartment as lethargic as the cats who were puddled at random spots on the floor in an epic display of pure apathy for the world outside.

What a complete waste of two free (technically three since I only helped out for about three hours on Wednesday) days.

Except that it wasn’t. That’s the funny part, because, while, yeah, okay, I was pretty lazy, I still managed to get some pretty epic stuff done. I read a lot, which is always nice, and even if I had wanted to go somewhere, I don’t have the money to spend on a trip to the zoo or the museum, which is what I would have wanted to do on a day off. Besides that, I formatted an entire book, built the second half of a cover, submitted it for review, and ordered a print proof of Bowlful of Bunnies. The print proof for an actual print version of my book is currently on its way to me and should be arriving in the next week, after which I will look it over and decide if it’s ready to hit the presses. And then I will have a print book. As exciting as publishing for the Kindle has been (don’t get me started on my attempts to publish on other formats, though, yeeeeesh, B&N why do you hate me so?), the prospect of an actual physical book still leaves me astounded and giddy and opens up so many more doors. It’s one thing to say, “Oh, sure, you can find my book online,” but another thing entirely to say, “Oh, sure, here’s my book right here” and flip the pages in their astonished faces.

So I just spent the last two days giving my writing career another kickstart. As soon as I get the print version where I want it to be, I’ll be starting a whirlwind of advertising and contests. I even had a small jump in my sales of the ebook version of BoB this week…

…so why do I feel like I’ve completely wasted these past few days? The human sense of accomplishment is weird. Or at least mine is. Maybe I’ll blame the fact that it’s been warmer again this week. My brain seems to demand temperatures of 75 or lower.