New Year, New Book?
Last Easter, I shared Data Morph with the world. This year, I am continuing the tradition of a big unveiling on Easter: I'm excited to share that I have started writing a new book!
For the time being, I am keeping this mostly under wraps, but I will share a few details here. First off, it is not pandas-related or even data-related, but it is a technology book on a topic that I'm truly passionate about. I came up with the concept for this book about a year ago, and I was eager to work on it. But life got complicated. When things calmed down again, I spent a couple of months creating this website, so I didn't get around to actually working on the book idea until earlier this month ā March 17th to be exact. (I'm ensuring I can precisely answer the "How long did it take you to write this book?" question later on.)
I'm approaching the writing process differently this time. I don't want to stress myself out like what inevitably happened with the other books. This book is entirely my brain child, and I am keen to shape every aspect of it. I haven't contacted any publishers yet because I want to go in with the initial text already written this time, and I am fully-prepared to self-publish, if it makes sense.
I have mapped out the chapters at a high level, and I absolutely love that I have all the flexibility to work on whichever chapter I please on any given day. I began with chapter 7, then did chapter 6, and now I'm working on chapter 8, with some outlining for chapter 3. This flexibility has allowed me to get into a flow that I have never experienced before, and as a consequence, I'm progressing much faster.
For this book, I'm targeting 10 chapters and around 200 pages.1 I've been applying what I learned from James Clear's MasterClass,2 and I aim to write a minimum of 500 words a day (again, on any part of the book I wish). I also limit my writing sessions to two hours a day, which prevents the book-writing process from taking over my life (a luxury I did not have with my past book-writing experiences).
My vision for this book is constantly evolving and concretizing. More than once, I have found myself cutting content from the outline that I was positive would be in the book just a few days prior. While these topics won't make it into the book, I plan to write articles for each of them. The first of which was published on Friday.
As I'm embarking on this journey without deadlines, I don't know when I will publish. However, I am confident that I will finish. Borrowing some fortune cookie wisdom, I will say that "it will be published sometime in the future." Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for more updates on the new book, including any articles that come out of the creative process.
Happy Easter! š£
- Subject to change.
- James Clear is the author of the bestselling book, Atomic Habits, (paid link).His course Small Habits that Make a Big Impact on Your Life is available on MasterClass.
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