I'm trying to write a book: Day 3
I'm going to keep a journal for my daily progress throughout August. I've already missed days 1 and 2...
Well, I’m already 2 days late, which seems apropos of how this book proposal is going.
Once this book proposal is finished and I’ve got a deal with a sympathetic publisher and the real work starts to actually write the book and the writing is going well, and I don’t use run-on sentences to lede a chapter, then we can, together, look back fondly at the deep struggle of workshopping an idea publicly.
But First: The Egomania of Writing a Book, or Separating Ego from Arrogance
I’ve been writing this blog for a little over 6 years, and it’s time to carry these ideas into a longer form, cohesive narrative. What I can say in 6000 words, I should also be able to say in 75000, right? It’s the great delusion of any writer that they should expect anyone to hold anyone’s attention. So I’m doing it anyway because my absolute need to be read and heard outweighs my deep anxiety about starting this process.
Book proposals, as I’m learning, require an absolute and monumental heck-ton of work beyond “I want to write a book,” compounded by my relative anonymity. While you all know me, at least on the Internet, the audience for who would buy my book must be quite a bit larger and indirectly cosign that, yes, they would spend their hard-earned dollars and time on me. I think I’m worth it—but how do you prove to a whole audience that you’re the first choice to invest in, to spend time and resources on a book—when they don’t know me or if I can deliver?
Through this lens, I’ve understood book publishing as a reflection of business risk, and it’s my job as a writer to convince the publisher that the potential benefits outweigh it.
So, yeah, I see how my half-baked outline was not good enough to convince the editor that her capacity was worth carving out for me. But I’m determined to prove it.
Tomorrow: Where the Proposal Stands
I’m going to open up my Google Doc where I’ve built 12 of what I expect to become 40 pages by the end of the month. You’ll have a chance to weigh in (please) and help point out obvious blind spots in my thinking. This could be a good chance to get the chat function going.
I hope to write some and then come here to talk about it. I’m hopeful to get real honest. Maybe.
Working Title
I’m also going to keep the title WIP here, subject to intense feedback and some combination of words that will summarize the book and sell it.
Currently:
Culture Devours Policy: Infrastructure Development in Crisis1
This is objectively terrible. God, it’s so boring. Help.