Getting My Life Together

the pigeon in that book is literally me. Week One of January 2017 and already this year is flying by. I have so much I want to accomplish this month and only three weeks left to do it. I don't know about you, but I always feel like I haven't done a thing, even if I have been checking off tasks from my list left and right. Maybe it's the nature of my tasks.

This week my mom has been in town being a huge help and a hindrance all at once. Her presence has definitely hurt my ability to get Nerdy Post and collaboration related work done, but that's because she helped me with the monumental task of purging my closet this week. Without her, I wouldn't have survived that process. I would have either given up and put everything back in, or I would have just lit everything on fire and started over. It took us the better part of two days to do it. I have a hard time letting go. But the closet is so clean and organized now that I can feel a weight off my shoulders.

Now I can focus on other parts of the house, like my Room of Requirement, which I intend to clear all the Nerdy Post related items {inventory from past boxes, shipping materials including 2,000 unfolded boxes} from and use as a space to take all my bookstagram photos for @dropandgivemenerdy and hyperlapse videos for @nerdy.post so that I can clear all the backgrounds and tripods and lights cluttering my beautiful library's floor. It's a long and slow process, so for now I still look like a hoarder. But I am determined to make our house match the picture I have in my head of what I want it to be--what makes me happy.

What else makes me happy? The fact that I am getting closer to finally having my book in proper printed form. On the days I wasn't cleaning my closet, or drawing up the plans for our Sherlock box and the months after it, I have been focusing on formatting my book for paperback. It's a challenge, and would have taken me days if not for the help of my best friend Michelle and her husband. Now I have only to input the last of my ebook-to-paperback edits from my incredibly talented editor friend, Lara Ferrari, draw up the book map, finalize the formatting, send the pdf to Michelle for one last pass through from herself for formatting and her husband for copy, then get the book printed and sent to me to make sure all is in line. Meanwhile, I'll need to create some fun extras to go along with the book, which I plan to send out to some IG reviewers to help generate buzz {I hope} and then officially release it to the masses. Self-publishing is hard. Maybe I should skip the bookmap for now and make it a special promo piece instead. I do, after all, have deadlines for three other collab projects this month. Yes, probably best to wait on the map.

Meanwhile, I carved out some time while rocking the baby to sleep tonight to read the last chapters of Pride & Prejudice, which I had to put off so I could finish designs for our Star Wars box and get everything ordered late last week. I am dying to start so many books it's not even funny. The two I am most itching to read right away are Crooked Kingdom, because I hate trying to avoid those spoilers, and the Rogue One novelization. Who knows when I will get to them, since I have a special readalong with a group of bookstagrammers for The Midnight Star and then Heartless to read for the bookstagram book club I am part of called Kindred Readers.

It's 2am and I can't decide if I should read, organize the Room of Requirement, or work on the book edits. Of course, at any moment the kid could wake up and decide its bedtime for me, refusing to go back to sleep anywhere but curled in my arms in my bed, where we will cuddle and I will get extra sleep and accomplish nothing else on the productivity side of things.

Here's hoping I use this time wisely!