Since I got back home from SXSW I’ve been working on finishing EVIL PLANS, my second book.
I think I’m almost there, Folks. A few more days of obsessive tweaking to go, and then off to the publisher’s for the final edit. Hurrah!
Man, what a relief. Ever since I signed the contract last summer, I’ve been feeling the pressure. The first book, IGNORE EVERYBODY did very well- FAR better than I ever could have predicted. Beginner’s luck? Maybe.
Regardless, to do it a second time felt like a lot to live up to. It feels GREAT to have the hardest part of the process mostly over and done with.
EVIL PLANS will have roughly the same format as IGNORE EVERYBODY: 18,000 words, plus a hundred or so cartoons. Designed to be read easily on the john, or on an airplane. As I’m fond of saying, “This isn’t rocket science”.
Here’s how the Introduction opens:
INTRODUCTION: “EVERYBODY NEEDS AN EVIL PLAN”
Everybody needs an EVIL PLAN. Everybody needs that crazy, out-there idea that allows them to ACTUALLY start doing something they love, doing something that matters. Everybody needs an EVIL PLAN that gets them the hell out of the Rat Race, away from lousy bosses, away from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate. Life is short.
Every person who ever managed to do this, every person who manged to escape the cubical farm and start doing something interesting and meaningful, started off with their own EVIL PLAN. And yeah, pretty much everyone around them- friends, family, colleagues- thought they were nuts.
Thanks to the Internet, it has never been easier to have an EVIL PLAN, to make a great living, doing what you love, doing something that matters. My intention is that by the time you’ve finished reading this book, you will completely concur. More importantly, you’ll actually feel compelled enough to go and do something about it yourself, if you haven’t already.
Last year my friend, David Brain interviewed me:
DAVID: What was the motive behind writing the book [IGNORE EVERYBODY]? I mean, I know how little money these things make, but do you want it to help other people better their lives or is it just another evil plan?
HUGH: I certainly didn’t expect to make any real money from it, and how much it would “help” other people is pretty debatable. But sometimes in your life you have these defining moments, where you draw a line in the sand and declare to the world, “This is who I am, this is what I believe, this is what’s important to me.” I think we all need these moments at some point, to make us better understand who we really are. Writing a book is a good way to force these moments to the surface. That was really the key driver, here.
And “forcing these moments to the surface” was the key driver with EVIL PLANS, as well. The book is not a how-to book; it’s not an instruction manual. It is a personal rant about something I’ve been pursuing all my adult life: to somehow find a way to unify both Work and Love.
i.e. To do what you truly love, and somehow get paid for it. Again, conceptually this may not be rocket science, certainly, yet it’s still something that eludes most of us. Most of us still have to schlep for a living.
Personally, I think most of us would rather not have to schelp. I think most of us would rather have an EVIL PLAN. I think most of us would much rather find a way to unify Work and Love.
Which is why, of course, I wrote the book. Wish me luck with it, anyway. Thanks…
[EVIL PLANS is scheduled to hit the bookstores April, 2011.]
