Last weekend, we were slammed with what is probably the biggest snowstorm of the year - about 12 inches were dumped on us outside, and as a result we have been out of work all week. The snow was welcomed though in all honesty because I needed a mental health break from my job. So, I used the time constructively to work on something I have been wanting to do for some time.
I have been wanting to publish a written testimony of my faith, and over the course of a week I managed to do so. At 132 pages, it is small, but it is all about me. As I was writing the chapters for it, I was beginning to think about a lot - what has happened to me over the past few years?? I felt honestly a bit like a fish out of water, especially being stuck in the foreign environment of downtown Baltimore, and I have been thinking how I could salvage some of that old fire I once had. One thing that helped was watching my good friend Stephen Missick's videos - he is honestly doing what I should be doing, and he is doing it in the face of a lot of adversity too. One has to admire that. Stephen is a good guy, and frankly he deserves a break of some nature too from the junk he is up against. I won't go into what he is dealing with, as he talks about that himself on his YouTube videos, but he is definitely in my prayers and hopefully those reading this will remember to say a prayer for him too.
If you have ever written a book or any extensive piece before, the one thing you will understand is that you don't do this overnight. It takes time, and then there are the edits and mechanics of designing covers and other stuff with the publisher. That is actually more challenging to me than the actual writing is, and let me go into two reasons why.
First, if you do a spelling/grammar review on a Word document, it is a royal pain in the butt. The AI-generated tool flags proper names, foreign language words, and other things, and it is really stupid. I cussed out Bill Gates more than once for this, because this is ultimately his stupid program, and then when I did a Google search on spelling/grammar checks on Word, the complaints were myriad. A part of me wanted to string Bill Gates up by his 'nads and then launch him into space in all honesty. However, the other applications I utilize are not much better.
In order to submit a manuscript on my publishing page, I have to convert the file to PDF, and this is where it gets to be a royal pain in the keister. It never fails - your format gets messed up if you attempt to convert a Word document to PDF, and then you have to do more work just to make it look right. It frankly drives me crazy. But, thankfully I got everything done, and the book has been published now. I will talk more of that later.
Aside from that, the winter storm has sort of paralyzed things over the past week, so there is not a lot happening. So, perhaps when I come back next week I will have more inspirational thoughts. Have a good rest of your week and stay warm in this chilly weather.
