In Critique of My Writing Career Pt.III: Announcement

I’ve started to write my second book, a nonfiction piece called Assholes of History…and Why They’re Still Loved. The book will be split into approximately 12 main chapters, with each chapter featuring a prominent asshole, or group of assholes, from history. Each chapter will be a biography of that asshole/group of assholes, along with an examination of why they are still culturally en vogue, despite of their misdeeds, as well as a critique of those who still follow them. Those who critiqued my first book, for being too aggressive will have plenty of opportunities to sharpen their pitchforks after reading Assholes of History. While I will present the facts of each profiled asshole/group of assholes, my stance will be unabashedly anti-asshole, and just importantly, against their modern-day apologists as well. This book might even make me a real writer, complete with consequences.

My goal with this book will be to hit 60,000 words, which would be the equivalent of about 240 pages. While that seems like a lot, breaking it down into manageable chunks is the key to framing this mentally. I called the manuscript for my first book complete at 43,000 words (after I had beaten the pro-meme argument far beyond the point of being able to defend itself!). However, history is rife with sources, and there will be a lot of ground to cover, so 60,000 is totally manageable. Besides, my book was released in late October of 2022, afterwards I went on a vacation to Eastern Europe. Since returning from Eastern Europe, I have been on an article-writing tear, writing and publishing 94 of my over 100 articles in just the last six months. The average length of my articles is about 1000-1200 words long; I’ve had some 600-word articles, and a few 2000-word ones as well, but generally my articles fall within 1000-1200 words. I’ll include a roughly 1000-word introduction that will lay out my criteria and thought process for evaluating assholery, as well as a 1000-word closing summary chapter. This brings the total word count to 58,000 words of asshole-related content. Since I plan on profiling (read: roasting) approximately 12 assholes/groups of assholes and their rabid modern fanbases, this only equates to about 4800 words per chapter, or the equivalent of four articles. Breaking it down like that, I know I’m absolutely capable of doing that, doubly so since I’ve written over 100,000 words after my book was released (talk about practice!).

I’ve already completed the first chapter of my book, and my process has stayed basically the same as it was for The Case Against Memes. Each morning for the past week, I’ve woken up and written about the target asshole, specifically a sub-topic pertaining to that asshole. Then after work, I come home and do research relating to the next sub-topic that I want to cover in that chapter, thus preparing myself to hit the ground running the following morning. It’s a routine that has absolutely served me well with The Case Against Memes, and it is already paying dividends with Assholes of History. After all, I’m a sucker for routines that serve me well. One thing that I’ve noticed is that my daily word output is appreciably higher with Assholes of History than it was with The Case Against Memes, with the latter I averaged (there’s that word again!) 500 words per day, while now I’m up around 800 words per day. However, I’ve only been at this book for a week and thus suffers from a limited sample size, so it’s a bit soon to say if this is my new pace. Although contrary to most writers, I actually like sitting down to write and I don’t get the sudden urge to procrastinate, so maybe this is my new pace?

With that said, there are only so many hours of the day, and my book writing will inevitably cut into time allotted for other things (your time is limited, so be ruthlessly efficient with it). Therefore, I’m consciously choosing to de-prioritize writing for my blog for the next few months until I finish the first draft of my manuscript. I’ll still write the occasional article or two though the frequency of these articles will drop considerably, and I’m going to be okay with that. After all, I and I alone have the special sauce on roasting assholes and their delusional fanboys. As much as I love side-projects, I know myself well enough to know that juggling both my current article-writing output along with a full-length book wouldn’t end well for someone who isn’t currently a full-time writer. Also, while I’m known for being a avid reader among those who know me, my non-research related readings will be put on hold. I’m choosing to sacrifice this upfront now, so I won’t feel like I was being lazy about it later.

I’ve carried some lessons with me that I learned the hard way with The Case Against Memes into writing Assholes of History. Some of them are technical mistakes I made as a rookie author, such as proper citation formatting; knowing this has shaved considerable time off of writing Assholes of History already and will undoubtedly save me some stomach-tightening stress during the eventual copy-editing. Opportunities to implement other learned lessons will occur later on in my Assholes of History journey., such as bringing a book cover design to the table and finding a graphic designer that understands the vision (my closest friends have been very blunt about their disapproval on the cover of my last book). Just like before, I’m taking the write first, find a publisher afterwards approach. I currently do not have an editor for my manuscript right now either, though I’ll focus on that after the first draft is complete. An editor can only fine-tune a manuscript, not magically materialize one out of thin air. I do, however, plan on reaching back out to my old editor from The Case Against Memes, for he is both a history professor with a lot of relevant expertise and one who imparted a lot of wisdom about authoring onto a rookie that was happy to receive it. I still have so much more I’d like to learn from him, so I hope he’ll agree to work with me again. Fingers crossed!

Wish me luck. I hope to one day earn your fist bump.