Husband would have a bird if I quoted a Dave Matthews song in a post, but it is how I’m feeling right now. Just marching along, one foot in front of the other every day, hoping to get where I’m allegedly going. But it feels like things have stalled and progress is minuscule.

I’ve avoided posting anything in a while because I wanted to wait until I had the official cover art to post. And we do have the artwork. But AH still has to approve the format and apply it to an actual physical mock-up (or whatever art people call it). So the artist is trying to accommodate and phone tag is being played and we’re already in the second week of August for pity’s sake! This part of the process has taken nearly as long as it took me to write the last fourteen chapters. Husband reminds me this timing is nothing compared to how long it takes in traditional publishing, and I know he’s right. But that’s part of the reason I chose to self-publish. And now, we’re just so close…. I find it increasingly difficult to focus on anything else, including work on the next book.

In addition, still have to discuss what the book will cost for consumers (please, Universe, let there be consumers!). I have absolutely no clue how that will work.

Husband also reminds me that, by self-publishing, we’ve already handed our investment over. They have our $$, and don’t feel the looming hysteria and anxiety that keeps me up nights. My timeline is not their timeline. And this is a profoundly discouraging thought. So, I try to focus instead on being persistent without being obnoxious (your guess is as good as mine how successful that little teeter-totter is working out). I am profoundly fortunate. I will endeavor to be profoundly patient as well.

I will remember Arthur Helps, who said, “…having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain of self confidence at having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.”

Of course, that guy was in his early 20s when he finished his first book, so…. What could he have known about patience?