Day 19: Creative Movement 30-Day Challenge

Day 19 of the 30-Day Challenge: Creative Movement:

Task: To read all the way through my self-published book, Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult.

Reason for Task: Simply stated, I need to update my book. I know some changes are needed and it’s time to get ’em done. So, I’m moving this goal out of “Procrastination Station” and into the “Creative Movement” goal-setting space.

Duration of Task: 2 days. The book is a quick read and could probably be completed in one day, if you have a day to really devote a chunk of time to reading. And it wouldn’t be necessary to read straight through in order to complete the task. I think you could easily take breaks from reading and come back to the book periodically, throughout your day, and still get Playground . . . read from cover to cover.

Outcome of Task: I didn’t complete as much of the book as I would have liked today. I knew it would be difficult to (only because of my schedule for the day). Today’s schedule required me to be out of the house (the majority of the day) running errands. Therefore, I knew it would be impossible to have a substantial amount of dedicated and uninterrupted quality time with my book in order to read it in one day. 

So, I decided to assign this task to 2 days for completion to give myself a realistic goal to shoot for. Plus, the reading of my book was not just for reading’s sake. I planned to do some proofreading/editing work as I consumed the pages.

This is not the first time that I’ve read through my book. I actually read through my book in late 2019. Check out this post, Reliving the Fears from Your Writing Process, to witness the anxiety I anticipated when reading Playground . . .  for the first time after self-publishing it. Nevertheless, I did manage to read through it and make some notes of minor grammatical changes that could be made (nothing regarding major changes to content meaning). 

The funny thing about reading through my book for the second time is that I’ve found additional items that could use some sprucing up as well. And, guess what? I’m not experiencing any anxiety over it. I do believe that I released all the uncomfortability with reading my self-published work when I went through the initial read. Furthermore, if this pattern of self-correcting my written work continues, I can only imagine that I’d find something to tweak each and every time I read through my book. So, enough is finally enough. At some point, an author simply needs to stop reworking the thing to death and move on. 

That’s what I intend to do after this second reread. I’m going to stop the madness. I’m not perfect; therefore, my book won’t be perfect. And although my book will never be the most polished thing out there, one thing I know it will deliver is a message of self-improvement to its readers. You can count on that.

Furthermore, today’s task will build upon what I accomplished when reading through my book for the first time. Instead of duly noting that some changes need to be made, I have every intention of actually displaying those changes in the book and uploading them onto KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) so that readers have the most up-to-date version of Playground . . . 

So, here’s the plan for this challenge. First, I’ll concentrate on getting the proofreading/editing while reading done (the task at-hand), and then I’ll proceed to do the research on how to upload changes to KDP and actually administer those changes. (I’ll make sure to include this task in a future day as part of this “Creative Movement” 30-day challenge.)

Practical Application of Day 19 for Your Life: When you know change is needed, why sit on it? Find out the necessary steps it takes to initiate change (for the better, of course); and then, act on it.