5B2021* Journal, Issue #1
*Five Books in 2021
So I’ve decided to write five books in 2021, like a crazy person. But before I set off on this grand journey, I need to level-set a few things in my own head.
It’s ok to fail
From crash diets to New Year’s Eve resolutions, I think the easiest way to miss a target is by setting too high of a bar for yourself, getting dispirited, and giving up. So first things first. Publishing one book in a year is nearly impossible, and attempting to write five should probably be illegal.
I will probably not succeed. And that’s ok. It’ll be fun to see what happens, no matter how it goes.
I’m not writing everything from scratch
I’m starting from 1.2 million words that are stored in my Ulysses writing app. So I could just take all those words, divide them into five equal chunks, and hit publish without writing a single new word. That would technically be enough to meet my goal, but that would be lame. I’m not doing that.
However, I do have a lot of writing I’d like to formally publish in book form. I have a bunch of children’s stories I wrote for my kids, for example. There’s a whole fantasy world, with maps and creatures and lore. That could be a book. I’ve got a bunch of political essays, and that’s probably enough for two books. And so forth. It’s a lot easier to curate a collection of essays than write a collection of essays, so that’s why five books might actually be doable.
The 1.2 million number is a mirage
There are a lot of duplicates in my writing app. For example, I might have an essay stored away in “Design Essays,” copied in another location with minor tweaks for some Medium post, then copied again in one of my two already published books.
I fully expect once I take out the duplicates, already-published material, and really bad writing, I’ll be left with about 17 words. So one of my first steps is to separate the wheat from the chaff.
This is supposed to be fun
I rarely get writer’s block, which is a huge blessing. Writing can be frustrating and hard, but underneath I’m always feeling a sense of discovery and fun. So I don’t expect this project to go smoothly, and I don’t always expect to have a smile plastered on my face. But the point of the project is to learn and have fun, so if I go too long without some sense of purpose, I should pay attention to that and make appropriate changes.
Quality is not the point
I’ll be lucky if five people read my books, and that’s ok. I’m not trying to impress a publisher or a giant Patreon fanbase. I’m not trying to get noticed, even at a small level. I want to see what I can do, then I want to turn each book I complete into an ebook and a hardcover copy to put on my bookshelf. (With a real ISBN barcode, which I always get a kick out of.) That’s it.
I’m going to work as hard as I can on quality, of course. But I also know that it’s not the point. The best I can is good enough.
