It's been a long journey bringing Much Love to life. It started simply as an idea for a book. Eventually it grew into an experiment combining literature with technology. Now it has become the flagship product for an entire business. The thing is, even though I released Much Love in January through asdf Publishing, it isn't exactly finished. It's still consuming a large portion of my time. My first set of readers, my "beta testers", began receiving emails in August of 2016. They have been providing edits and feedback that I've been incorporating into the book before the general public reads it. Since the book takes a year to deliver, my beta testers are just a few months away from being done. Once I make the final edits the story will be self-sustaining, and I'll finally be able to set it aside and move forward to my next project.
I have to say, I'm really excited for what's to come. When I first set pen to paper on Much Love five years ago, I actually had the idea for three books that I wanted to write. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I chose to throw myself at Much Love because I thought it was my most meaningful idea. My upcoming project is much more true to myself and my writing style though. Simply put, I like telling stories. Long narratives are difficult for me maintain. I much prefer writing shorter, simple stories. I did that to an extent in Much Love. I wrote each email as it came to me, rather than planning the entire story and writing them all chronologically. In the back of my mind I knew what the full story would be, but I didn't think too much about it in my day-to-day work. It was only after I had written everything I had to say that I went back and threaded in the larger narrative. Even that turned out to be difficult for me as I had to evaluate how each email was developing the story as a whole.
As opposed to Much Love, my upcoming book will not contain a larger narrative, it will simply be a collection of stories. Furthermore -- and this is what really excites me -- I'll be telling my own stories. I know, I know, I'm incredibly conceited , but I love writing autobiographically. That's how I first cut my teeth as a creative writer more than a decade ago, and those are the stories I want to tell. In fact, my upcoming book will be retelling many of the same stories from way back then, so this project may turn into more of an exercise in editing than anything else. That’s every writer’s favorite part though, right?
As for the medium, I'm planning to write this one as a traditional book. I’m hoping to publish an eBook and a limited run of hard copies through asdf Publishing. If things go well I might even try to distribute it through a traditional publishing company. I'll grant that it’s a little strange hearing the founder of a publishing company talk about publishing a book through someone else. The truth of it is though that I don’t begrudge anyone for trying to go through the publishing giants. I think there will always be a place for them, but that’s the topic of another post. I’ll leave the discussion here for now because I have plenty of writing still ahead of me!