I am a smart person. In fact, I would place myself in the above average intelligence category. (I’m also very humble.) However, sometimes it is that very intelligence that makes me really stupid. I can usually pick things up or figure them out on my own fairly quickly. However, when I can’t, instead of asking for help or reading more than a sentence or two of the instructions I try again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again, until I’m ready to rip my freaking hair out because I can’t get it to work! (There’s also a fair bit of stubbornness in there.) At this point, I finally break down and read the instructions while swearing under my breath about stupid programming/interfaces/construction, etc. It is while reading the instructions – or googling how-to’s if there are no instructions – that I realize that I am a complete idiot and have wasted insane amounts of time.
9 times out of 10 I was doing it correctly from the very beginning, except for one simple step. Or forgetting to press one button. Something so simple and easy, that had I fully read and followed the instructions after my first attempt I would have been done in a matter of minutes. Now there is always that 1 out of 10 that even if you read and follow the instructions to the letter you still need an old priest and a new priest to get it to turn out okay – in case you’re wondering, I’m referring to any “Easy Assembly” furniture. That shit is never easy! Which means that 10% of the time I never had a chance in hell and 90% of the time I’m a complete idiot by refusing to read the instructions because I think can figure it out myself!
Those aren’t good odds. I’m not a math major, but you don’t have to be to know that those aren’t good odds. In fact, if you were in Vegas playing Blackjack, those are the same odds of busting if you hit on 20. Nobody hits on 20 in Blackjack. Not even the gambling addict or the drunk sorority girl in platform heels playing with daddy’s money, hits on 20. Because you are practically guaranteed to lose. So you would think, that being an intelligent woman who knows these odds, I would just suck it up and read the directions fully after the first attempt fails.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. It’s ridiculous! The stubborn runs strong in me. Apparently stronger than the intelligence. I have spent the past three weeks fighting with the images in my children’s book trying to get them to format correctly, and line up correctly, and not come across as complete gibberish in the previewer. I tried it as a PDF, then as an ePub. I tried it with each page as its own image and I tried it with each double page spread as a single image. I read a paragraph here or there in the directions and tried those suggestions. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. Finally I tried reading the freaking directions from start to finish. Guess what they told me to do? Download a free program, stick my PDF into it, and hit the publish button. Within an hour – most of which was upload time – I had a beautiful file uploaded to Kindle that looks great in the previewer. So if you are a writer looking to publish to Kindle, please learn from my mistakes – because lord knows I don’t seem to be capable of doing so – read ALL of the instructions BEFORE you start.
I am an idiot.
Amy’s not an idiot though. She’s smart, she got the book.
*Shameless plug of self-promotion: My book, Children Have Got to Be Carefully Taught is now available for pre-order on Kindle! Click here.