Details. The right ones. The ones that matter, those are the ones I’m convinced will make the difference. And right now, I’m enjoying the giddy rush of making money writing and thinking instead of grinding out deals. I’m getting better–doing stuff joyfully, for the most part. But paying attention to the right details, to make everything sing and dance…while retaining the 2.0 fluidity that we love.

Nobody likes a perfectionist, but nobody hates a masterpiece. I don’t want to sanitize my work to perfection because the kind of writing that is excreted by committees blows chunks. I’ve almost completed my book, and it’s been in an improving state of almost completion for weeks, even though it’s consuming 3-4 hours of my time each day. And it’s 3-4 joyful hours. I think I’m a week or so from releasing it, and I wanted it out there and in the world’s hands before christmas, hence the santa hat.

But, really, the content was drafted. I don’t have the capacity to write production quality content in real time. I was taking on big damn topics: Drama, procrastination. There’s a chapter called f—k your parents. Those things weren’t going to work if they were hamfisted or shrill attempts. The writing itself had to be more solid than anything I’ve ever written, and it’s certainly a project that is about as hard as anything I’ve done.

Realize, I’ve read about 500 books in the business/self help/personal development genre in my lifetime. Everything from the excellent “7 Habits” to the mediocre “Cheese” to some trite & dangerous crap du jour like the Secret.

Right now, I’m not unhappy with the writing. That’s not to say I’m done with it. I’ve gone through it 5-6 times, and it’s shaping up to look really friggin’ cool. The last week has been uplifting–the feedback from my throng has been good, and now I look for more negative feedback to make sure it’s sharp as hell before I release it. I should be doing work on the Blog I’ve made, but that’ll come, and I intend to continue to improve this throughout its lifetime. There’s also so much more to write, there were 24 chapters called:

F—k yourself:
f–k clutter
f–k perfection
f–k whining
f–k obesity (free sample)
f–k procrastination
f–k indecision
f–k drama
f–k slacking

F—k Your tribe:

f–k your team
f–k your guru
f–k your job
f–k your stroller
f–k baby boomers
f–k The Jonses
f–k lawyers
f–k meetings

F—k your programming:

f–k self righteousness
f–k manners
f–k fear
f–k egotism
f–k entitlment
f–k compromise
f–k materialism
f–k your parents

The interior design I absolutely love, and the collaboration has been an utter blast. The marketing is going to be fun, too, an ‘anti’ self help book. We’re going through it over and over again to make sure it makes sense, it’s solidly constructed. It’s more work than you think, but the work will pay off, provided that the entire consumerist economy isn’t a worse problem than I had thought.

This will probably be the last PDF I do. While doing a PDF gives you good control and SOME interactivity, the real promise of ebooks is what they do that’s not book. In other words, Brian Clark was again, right. And I’ve ignored his advice because of Zen To Done’s inspiration. That was a PDF that felt like the best of both worlds, so I gave ‘er a whirl.

Anyway, this beast has consumed me for a while. I look forward to getting it done and off of my chest. I’ll probably have some version of this for sale next Monday, but it’s unlikely to be the ‘final’ version.

Also: more stuff on freelancing is coming. For those of you that requested the book download–I’m sorry I got ahead of myself. I was excited about Keith’s cool Aweber plugin for WordPress, and wanted to put it to use. (That’s another project that’s almost done. If you want an aweber box that’s 100% customizable, and 100% compatible with every WP theme, let me know, Keith and I’ve got something cool for you).

See you tomorrow.  Back to th e mill.