Looking for a Sign

 

Life is full of unexpected things and, as humans, we seem to spend a lot of time looking for a sign.

Shall I go this way?  Or that?  Should I take the road less travelled?  Or stick to the well trodden path?

I had no desire to learn how to spin and weave when the idea was first introduced to me.  I wound up in the spinning class at the college because I wanted to learn how to use natural dyes.  And then the first day of class, the instructor informed us that before we could learn how to dye, we had to spin some yarn.

And so the path was presented to me.  

I still spent the first 6 months ignoring it until the pieces finally all fell together - much like a jigsaw puzzle when you don't know what the picture looks like and you put the final piece in place and see the view in it's entirety.

After writing the fourth book and setting it aside, then realizing that the plan wasn't going to go the way I intended, I spent some days mulling over options.

Sometimes we ignore what is right in front of us and so it has been with ko-fi.  Right from day one the ko-fi site has made me choose between listing a digital product, or a physical one.  And always I was listing a physical product, ignoring the other option.

Finally I picked up that piece of the puzzle and realized that if my intent was to *only* produce a digital 'book'...ko-fi was the easiest way to go.  (Blurb is great if you want physical and digital, but this one isn't going to be a 'best seller' and probably more expensive as a 'real' book than most people will want to spend.)

Yesterday I messed around and yes, I can upload a file and offer to sell it.  I used an essay I'd written for publication but it wasn't accepted.  What the heck, it was about writing books - and it was there, never before seen in public.  It's only 5 pages, so I put $1 price on it, just to test the site.

Then I wondered if I could upload a larger file, so I just now tried Magic in the Water.  Lo, it seemed to work!  Since I already sell that on blurb (as either print or digital) I didn't hit publish on it.  But ko-fi didn't reject the file as being 'too large'.

So now it's ball back in my court.  I've had some other things that needed doing this week, but I should be able to open the file and do another read through.  There are some things that need changing, it needs formatting to *look* like a book.  But I've got a title, I've got a couple of options for a cover, I've got chapter titles and I've got Word.  I need to get Adobe so I can convert the Word file to a pdf.  Unless I can arm twist a friend to do it for me. 

But - and I say this with some trepidation - IF this works, there is a possibility that I could publish other things.  Some of what I would like to publish are the handouts for the Workshops in a Box I wrote. I spent a lot of time crafting those handouts, and the information is still solid.  Unfortunately those files are saved on CDs.  I'm not sure if I saved them before I tossed all my CDs, but it's worth digging through the files?  I have a vague memory of transferring some files to a thumb drive.

Since it looks like I am going to have to limit my weaving to no more than two sessions a day while we try to get my body working better, *and* I'm feeling better enough that just sitting is annoying, writing is another way I can keep 'weaving', even if it is only words.

And who knows, I might just publish that bio I wrote in 2019 as I faced 'retirement'.  I keep thinking about Emily Carr, who when she could no longer paint, turned to words, and kept creating...