Insanity: Week 4 Progress Report

I forgot to write Week 3’s progress report, possibly because I was so busy revising and formatting the ebook for Bad Decisions, but probably because I have no concept of time. I can’t remember anything that happened during Week 3, so let’s just skip ahead to Week 4.

Insanity The Workout:

Totally paid off! Saturday, without ever having run 3 miles at one time, Josh and I participated in Emily’s Runaway 5k. Heck, we did better than participate—we got second place in our age groups—and Josh ran every single k! I had to walk a few (eight or nine) times, but I still ran more than I thought I could.

And that’s not even the best part. The best part was the costume contest. I was the only entrant not dressed as a bride, groom, bridesmaid, or groomsmaid. With a borrowed Bible and wearing my cross shirt, I welcomed the dearly beloved who were gathered there today as Father Etteldorf. I’m used to no one getting my jokes, so I wasn’t surprised when the winners of the women’s costume contest were announced without even a reference to me. Then they announced the winners of the men’s costume contest. Funniest costume—Father Etteldorf! Yessirree, Saturday night, using only my wits and some stuff I borrowed, I brought home the bacon. In the form of a free one-topping Casey's pizza coupon. (Which we will probably use tonight, as I don't really feel like cooking.)

We’re still doing Insanity the Workout. Today begins our recovery week. Next week we start the Max Insanity stuff, so I imagine the Week 5 progress report will be the last one I post before I die. Unless I forget to post again.

Just in case:

Insanity the Writing:

I learned that formatting a 50-page story for Kindle is not hard, just incredibly tedious. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like formatting a whole novel. What I’ll probably have to do when I put Halo together is hire a lookalike to play me for a few weeks and seclude myself somewhere far away from friends and family while I go through the formatting with a fine-toothed comb. Also, I’m going to make sure I’ve got all the revisions done that I’m going to do before I format.

Formatting tedium notwithstanding, Bad Decisions by E.M. Smith (my pen name who writes non-paranormal action and adventure exclusively) is now available on Amazon for 99 cents.

So, the story’s published with a month to spare. (Remember how this Insanity project keeps going for two whole months? July 22^nd to September 22^nd? That's okay, I didn't remember, either. It's something about the core concept that's so hard to grasp.) What now? Now I write the follow-up to Bad Decisions, working-entitled Bad Coffee. I’m not sure what the arc of this series is going to be, lengthwise, but if I can get about the same amount of work done per day on Coffee as I did on Decisions, I should be able to get the second story up before Insanity ends.

When all of this is over, I’ll write a post on the touchy-feely aspects of self-publishing and getting into better shape via exercise and sobriety. I’m still keeping up that Excel chart—obviously because my physical prowess is outstripped only by my powers of organization—so that will be included in the touchy-feely post as well.