Setting goals and book writing
Steven Pressfield is getting in the way
Well,
I thought that writing The Book of Wrong Answers would be easy.
I figured that I could knock out four books over two years.
I thought it would be a simple matter of stapling together a bunch of posts with some images and making something fun to read without putting too much work into each volume.
Then, I listened to Nobody Wants To Read Your Shit by Steven Pressfield.
The chapters near the end of the book on “How not to write a self help book” were particularly helpful. I looked at what I was putting together and thought: Nobody wants to read this shit. This needs more structure. This needs more flow.
As such, the editor and I are involved in another major reordering. It’s a big overhaul. The writing is becoming a bigger project of establishing a through line and delivering it fully.
I’m really excited about the direction we’re heading with the book. As such, my pledge of four books in two years is looking remarkably foolish. I’m scaling back my ambition. Three books in thirty months.
The first volume of The Book of Wrong Answers completed in the first quarter of 2022. Launch date? TBD.
Four books in two years was a great, big, crazy, outrageous goal. I’m glad I had that goal. Now, I realize that I was overly ambitious. Now, I’m changing the goal.
And?
Without that goal, I never would have gotten this far.
Can you set a great, big, crazy, overly ambitious goal for yourself?
What would happen if you were to be like me and come up short?
How much further along would you be?
It’s like the old saying goes:
When they ask you for your ticket, tell’em Jimmy sent ya
I do.
I keep them to myself, unless that other person is super supportive. Those people are rare for me. I know who loves me.
I do write them down where I will see them. The ones I consider to be successes are the ones I work on regularly. Sometimes a goal is a destination and sometimes a goal is taking the journey. Journey people are successful with every step they take. Destination people are only successful once.