October 31, 2011

  • Time Flies

    I have to say that I have procrastination down to a spectacularly fine art. 

    As many of you know, a couple months ago I was doing some editing for a friend on her debut novel. I had expected to receive a revised version shortly thereafter, but did not get it until earlier this month. This wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been so ill and unable to acquire the needed mental capacity to analyze the manuscript. 

    Now, it is two weeks later and I was barely well enough to travel back to my fantabulous apartment -over two hours of highway driving away- so the first day back consisted of unpacking any foodstuffs and then taking a "nap" for the rest of the day. Once I woke up and checked my email, I found an email as to how necessary it is for me to edit the MS as soon as possible for there is a deadline to be met. Totally understandable, but I was too freaking ill prior to this point. 

    Today, I had a plan to work as long as I possibly could on said manuscript as I fully intend to get the edits done no later than the end of the week. This draft is supposed to be a final copy with only minor cosmetic changes since I was incredibly thorough with the last draft, so I don't expect it to take a month like last time. The only problem was actually settling down to do the edits with full concentration and discipline because I somehow managed to do the aforementioned procrastination. 

    *** For anyone who wants a quick summary just scroll down to the list near the bottom of this post. For those who want the interesting little details so as to laugh at me and get a glimpse at the craziness within my brain, keep reading. ***

    I opened the manuscript on my work doc only to see comments already in there making me question if i was sent the correct draft. I sent an email to inquire and, while waiting, began to write a post for my book blog about the novel. This led me to wonder what the author already had set in place for a blog tour as I am also supposed to assist with that, and so a check into her blog for details was necessary. Sadly, it did not include the information I was looking for and so I checked her facebook page witch also did not have the answer but did have links to other posts about the book.

    While reading those posts, another topic caught my eye and I had to read it and the comments. I was in the process of leaving a comment of my own when I realized it was long enough for me to do a post on my opinion on the topic. So I opened up a new word doc to start a draft for my own book blog post and somehow managed to accrue enough information for a four-part series consisting of 700 to 1000 words per section! I am undecided whether I can break it down further, but wonder if it is too long to retain reader interest. What say you?

    Once completely the rough draft of those posts and settling on which month and/or days I would want to have them available for the public, I realized my birthday was coming up. That led me to think that I should probably have a book giveaway on my blog in honour of my birthday, but wondered if I should instead wait to do a giveaway for the one-year anniversary of my book blog which is little more than a month later. 

    In the end I decided that my birthday is just too awesome to pass up and set about decided what books to give as prizes and the rules for entering the contest. I had one giveaway already and discovered that because I didn't have a clear set of requirements, people were lax in completely their entries so I had to come up with some really good guidelines that must be followed. 

    It was only then that I noticed that over six hours had gone by and I hadn't even managed to edit two full pages of the manuscript! So I checked my email for a reply from the author -nothing- and checked to see if she had been on online at all in that time via facebook -she had- and decided I should update my facebook status too. Only that got to be too long and so I had no choice but to come on my lovely xanga and post here about how I completely wasted an entire day by being productive in anything but what I was supposed to be doing and in doing so I am procrastinating even further! 

    If I ever look back at my thought process, I notice that it always follow a linear path of connections. But quite often, people think my mind is a jumping jumble with no segue from one thing to the next. Even looking at my point form description I can see a pattern in what I was doing, but perhaps I am just deluding myself *L0L*

    The below is a summary of happened between 4:30pm on Sunday and now. 

    1) start editing manuscript
    2) write an email
    3) read friend's blog
    4) check facebook
    5) read other blogs
    6) write four more blog posts
    7) think about birthday
    8) think about book blog 1 year anniversary
    9) make supper
    10) prepare a post for future giveaway
    11) check email
    12) check facebook
    13) write xanga post

    So there you have it. Have any of you procrastinated the whole day away? Felt both productive and unproductive? Think that their mind works logically though most people rarely figure out what you're talking about? 

    SUMR