I was supposed to write my next book long before now. Like years ago. Maybe three. Ok, five.
If I’m being really honest, which I am, my first book was a bit of a cop out. I wanted to write a book about living in Cambodia called ‘The Swashbucklers Guide to Blowing Up Cows’ – (That’s definitely a story for another time) – and even wrote a bunch of pages and the cover designed, but chickened out and wrote a book about how to get into the creative industries instead.
It was called ‘The Swashbucklers Guide to Becoming An Astronaut’, obviously, and had literally nothing to do with astronauts. As a marketing person, I’d have to say choosing a stupidly long title that had literally fucking nothing to do with the subject of the book, may not have been my finest hour.
Writing a book aimed at young people with no job or money wasn’t exactly genius either. Consequently, I still have one or two (million) copies still stashed in my shed. With any luck, I will get a mouse infestation and they will at least have a good feed and save me moving them again next time I move house.
If you’ve ever seen the book, you’ll know I ‘created’ it more than ‘wrote’ it because I only wrote about nine words myself. Everything else was quotes and content from people way smarter than myself. The end result was nice enough, but when I tell people I wrote a book, I always put a little * on the end of it.
My follow up book was the same format, and still wasn’t about living in Cambodia. Or the book I really wanted to write. That one was about running and had a similarly idiotic title. At least ‘The Swashbucklers Guide to Running Away from Dinosaurs’ had the word ‘running’ in it. Although there were quite a few disappointed customers who quite quickly realised it had fuck all to do with dinosaurs. Oh well. Never judge a book by its cover and all that, right?
I wrote slightly more words for that one, and pushed quite hard to do some races I thought would give me enough cred to be able to say “hey, I wrote a book about running” and not seem like a complete fucking dickhead. I’m not really sure I succeeded, but the story about how I had to get rescued by a fucking helicopter mid-race at least gave the book a bit of drama.
Which brings me to now. Or at least then.
After that I immediately started writing my next book. Which became two books. Which became no books. Which became a new idea for a new book. Which became no books again. There was a book about adventure, the one about life lessons… and a few other ideas. That never happened. Some of them had titles and even introductions. But not a lot of actual words.
A few years ago I decided to write a book called ‘Fuck. That.’ about the ‘fuck thats’ I live my life by. ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck’ by Mark Manson had already come out and it wasn’t ideal I wanted to call my book something with the word ‘fuck’ in it because I didn’t want to seem like I was jumping on the fuckwagon.
Since then, it seems like every second book has ‘fuck’ in the title. ‘The Fuck It Diet’, ‘Go the Fuck to Sleep’, ‘Clam the Fuck Down’ ‘Fuck Feelings’, ‘Fuck Stress’, ‘Healthy As Fuck’, ‘Busy As Fuck’, ‘Zen as Fuck’, ’I Used To Be A Miserable Fuck’, … even the ‘Fuck off I’m Colouring’ colouring in book.
And yes, there was a book called ‘Fuck This’ and another one called ‘Fuck That’.
Fuck.
Lately I’ve been trying to decide if it’s even worth me still writing that book.
I feel stuck. Like I’m not capable of writing a decent book. With actual words. Like I’m not qualified to write a book about life stuff cause my life is usually such a fucking mess. Like I missed the boat and can’t call it ‘Fuck. That.’ anymore.
A few weeks ago though, something happened. It’s something that happens every now and then with me. Usually when I’m pondering life and deciding whether I should do something others might consider stupid. (Because they’re right.) I was sitting in the jungle in Java waiting for birds to come along so I could photograph them and thinking about the whole ‘am I ever gonna write another fucking book’ situation, and I thought ‘Fuck. That. I’m gonna write the fucking thing’. And decided to put all the other shit aside and start writing it anyway.
So that’s what I’m going to do. It’s what I am doing. Because this is the start of that book. Right here, right now, this is the prologue, or introduction, or note from the author (that’s me!) or something.
And here we are. Not thinking about doing it. Or wishing. Or planning. Or hoping. Or trying. Or being worried or nervous or afraid. But actually doing. And that, ladies, gentleman, and assorted other humans, is my first fuck. that.
The first of 52. One a week for the next 12 months. (Maybe.)
Because sometimes when you’re not sure what to do. Not sure if you’re even capable of doing something. Or if what you do will be any good. You just say have to say ‘fuck. that.’ and do it anyway.
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