Refreshing!

Since I took a bit of a break, although not very long, I have had to refresh my brain on the story that I want to tell. That's tricky with a three week old, let me tell you. I don't have much time to read these days other than at our 3a feeding which is always really rough for her for some reason. I sit in my rocking chair and rock her back to sleep for a couple of hours and read the Kindle app on my phone.
My stories are saved to my computer and when you only have one hand to do anything, working the computer can be tricky!

Enter, Calibre. I work on Scrivener for the Mac, as I am sure I have mentioned in the past because I LOVE it so! Scrivener makes it easy to convert things to different formats without copying and pasting or any of the other annoying ways to do it, and it keeps your original document as well.

What does that have to do with catching myself up on my WIP? Everything. I can sit there in my rocking chair with my Kindle all night! I knew that there was a way to save documents to the Kindle, but I hate the view of the pdf's on the devise. There has to be a way to read your stuff like an ebook, right? Now I'm not going to lie, it took me most of the baby's morning nap to figure out how to do what I wanted to do, but I'm about to save you a lot of time. You're welcome in advance!

Mind you, this is specifically for looking at your document as is. I didn't play around with the formatting or anything like that because that isn't what is important to me at this moment. I only want to refresh my memory on what is happening in my character's lives. When I get to that point in my journey I will let you know and inform you exactly what I did.

So. Lets get started. First off download Calibre. Its free and an easy internet download.

Open your manuscript on Scrivener. At the top is a little icon for compile. Click that and another page will pop up.

At the bottom of that page there will be a COMPILE FOR box with a drop down menu. Find epub ebook and select that, then hit compile. It will ask you where to store it and you can do whatever works for you but I found that just having it on my desktop worked best for me. Note: There is an option for epub Kindle, but I couldn't get that one to do what I wanted.

Once its stored wherever you want it open Calibre.

Calibre is kind of self explanatory, but for those of you who are like me and NEED to make sure you are doing it correctly, here ya go!

At the top left hand side is an icon that says ADD BOOKS. Click it and find the epub version of the book you want. Select it and it will upload itself onto Calibre.

Now all you have to do is plug in your Kindle to your computer and Calibre will detect the devise. At the very top of the computer screen there will be a Detect Devise column. Click it and it will download your book to the Kindle attached to the computer.

Whalla!

You can also publish books with this site, but like I said, I'm not that far into my journey yet but when I get there you will be the first to know!

Now a bit about writing and what's been on my mind.

I want things to be perfect, always. I want the perfectly clean house, I want the perfect office space, the perfect working conditions, the perfect ideas, and the perfect first draft. Or else I don't want to do it at all. Lately I have been learning a lot about imperfection. My house has been neglected since my little bird made her appearance. Suddenly having floors that are mopped regularly isn't as important to me as a shower. Those are the kinds of decisions that I have to make on a daily basis because I simply do not have time to do it all anymore. I have had to compromise my standards on stupid shit so that the important shit gets done and gets done right. So maybe there is dust on my mantle, I got to read three pages before the bird woke up though. My brain has had to do a complete shift. I suppose kids will do that to you.

Anyway, I have decided that my days for perfection are over. I probably should have taken more advantage of a distraction free working environment while I had it because now the bird comes first. Even as I write this I am wearing my Moby Wrap and she is napping on my chest. I've got twenty more minutes to finish whatever it is that I wanted to get done before she is going to wake up ready to be changed and eat again, and that's if she lasts that long. That's my life these days.

I have been rereading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and I wanted to share a little excerpt from there on Perfectionism that got me thinking today. Anne Lamott does that to me. She's awesome. Go buy this book and soak up her advice, the trick is that you have to use it though!

"I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a while lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it." -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

So good. So true.