Meet my manuscript!

I just said that in the Patti Stanger “Meet My Millionaires!” voice, in case your mind-reading skills aren’t in effect yet today.

This manuscript has been the source of much joy, frustration, concentration, focus, determination, teamwork, and elation for the past ten months.

Thing is, I hate printers. Not my publishing printers, but home printers.  Those nasty little $99 devices that break at just the wrong time.  And I need to see the book printed out to edit properly because that’s the way my brain works.  Screens just won’t do.

I would spend an hour or more printing each copy of the Film is Not Dead manuscript, replacing ink cartridges and swearing like a sailor for each draft that took place.  There have been many, many drafts.

When Haunani mentioned my blood pressure one too many times during these printing episodes, I decided to say “Screw it” and give FedEx Home Office printing a try. I can upload the PDF to their local office and have it printed within 2 hours for less than the cost of my own ink and paper, since those FedEx elves are laser-printing pros. The swearing is done by someone else if any is required, and I just whisk in to pick up my beautiful, perfectly-printed manuscript.

This simple bit of outsourcing brings me intense joy. Why didn’t I do this sooner?

Guilt. I felt guilty because printing is so ‘easy,’ because it’s ‘eco-friendly’ to try to read on screens, because it’s so ‘lazy’ to let someone else do my ‘work’ for me.

Is any of this ringing a bell?

You don’t outsource _______ because it’s so ‘easy’ that you should be able to do it yourself.
You don’t pay someone else to ____________ because it’s so much eco-friendlier to do _____ instead.
You don’t let a professional handle your dreaded task because you’re just being ‘lazy’ and should be able to do the work yourself.

Lose the guilt.

I promise, the amount of joy you’ll receive from having your green juice delivered or your cloth diapers washed, from having your manuscripts printed or your files RAW-processed, from paying someone to make your trips to the post office and prep orders for shipping — I promise — that joy will surpass your guilt in no time.

Let the joy win.

P.S.  Here’s every product and service I use to keep my business running, in the hopes that they’ll help you lose even more guilt today.