Wherever you are on your book writing adventure, you’ll find what you need here…
What to do if you’re just starting out on your Author Adventure: planning, preparation, and dealing with your Inner Dickhead
If a frog eats you alive, don’t just sit there and get digested, like a wimp.
Pick yourself up and start walking.
I’m fully serious.
There’s a species of Japanese water beetle called Regimbartia attenuata — we’re going to call it Reg — that is the natural prey of frogs.
Reg is small, only 4-5mm, so the frogs swallow them whole as a tasty treat.
Ten minutes before I did this cool move, I faffed for five minutes, telling myself the stupid story that I CAN’T DO THIS, IT’S TOO SCARY.
(It’s a ham* spring, btw, in case you’re not familiar with gymnastics vernacular).
Funnily enough, before that triumph, I had never tried to do the thing, so how on earth did I know that I wouldn’t be able to do it?
What most people get wrong about writing a book is the idea that every book has to be a massive book, and it doesn’t.
It can be a MicroBook. Under 100 pages, maybe 15k to 25,000 words.
The traditional publishing industry has decreed that there are conventions for how long a book needs to be.
It doesn’t have to be any particular length.
I’ve had a couple of weeks off social media and lordy LORD has it felt good.
For one thing, I feel more like a proper writer again… which is weird considering I’ve done very little actual writing, other than idly planning out a MicroBook called A Short History of Googly Eyes.
Whenever I’m on LinkedIn or wherever, something always pops up to make me feel like shite.
In 410BC, on a warm Tuesday evening at approx 9.15 pm, Socrates’s wife Xanthippe slapped an empty dinner plate down in front of him.
Xanthippe had had enough. She ran the household and raised his kids, and Socrates… well, Socrates refused to bathe or trim his beard, and spent his days loafing around talking shit with his bros.
Last week at the gym I took a tiny beetle step to becoming the type of irritating person who makes the most of every moment.
You know the type — they have to fill every spare second with something productive or what’s the point of them.
Here’s what happened because I know you’re on the edge of your seat.
“Why are you dithering?” said Joe.
“Me? I’m not dithering,” said I.
“Yes, you’re dithering. What are you doing?”
“I have many things to do and I’m not doing them. Shout at me.”
“I’m not going to shout at you,” he said. “What’s the most important thing?”
Say it with me: MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS.
You cannot tell me that the algorithm isn’t literally damaging our brains.
I open up Instagram and LinkedIn (and I don’t even go near TikTok) to see the following in this order:
“I asked ChatGPT”.....
We need to talk about bestsellers.
Bestsellers are hyped; books are written.
Then we market the shit out of them in hopes they’ll become a bestseller.
There are courses out there that proclaim promises like “write your bestseller with us” ...
Occasionally I wake up at 4am in a cold sweat, as I vividly recall that time I silenced a crowded restaurant by making the following suggestion to my friend:
“Well why don’t you just open up your legs and stuff it all in?”
It’s not what you’re thinking. It really isn’t.
Things I don’t miss about the past:
Cassette tapes getting tangled up and ruining the mix-tape you made
DJs talking over the end of songs when you tried to record the Top 40
Rotary phones (who has time to wait for it to click all the way back round from 0)
Things I do miss about the past:
You’re not for everyone. Nor am I.
And that’s not only okay, it’s brilliant!
There’s not enough time or energy in the world for one person to help everyone.
So, you probably don’t wanna work with me if you want a guaranteed bestseller...
