A couple of months ago I wrote about a blook, It is just you; not everything's shit by Steve Stack. I've been in recent contact with Mr. Stack and asked him for the details of his process - how did he transform that blog into a blook? This is his reply.
I decided to start the blog towards the end of last year. The Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? books were Christmas bestsellers and, whilst I thought they were very funny, I didn't completely subscribe to their grumpy view of the world. I thought it might be interesting to see if I could write about nice things in a way that people would find appealing. I found that it was quite hard to be funny, or at least mildly amusing, about things you actually like or admire. Writing about things that annoy you is easier, I think. But anyway, I figured I would give it a go and see what happened.
To start with I simply posted every time I thought of something new. I didn't have a huge long list to work through, but some entries inspired others and then friends and readers of the blog started piping up with suggestions as well. I put new material up as and when the mood took me and typed it straight into the blog software. After a while though I decided to keep records of the entries I had posted so began to transfer existing posts to Word and then wrote all new material in Word before cutting and pasting.
Early on in the blog's life I was contacted by The Friday Project. Quite a few people were linking to my site and they caught wind of it. They felt it would make a great book but only if I could turn it round in time for Christmas. I had quite a tight deadline and had to change the way I was approaching things. I had to take some time off to come up with a good long list of entries, research them and write them up. Once I was in the swing of it I found it lots of fun and was able to deliver the manuscript on time. Since then I have effectively been posting entries that have already been written for the book. Actually, that is not quite right, in the past couple of months more and more entries are spontaneous and unique - they don't feature in the book at all.
And that is pretty much how it went. My plan is to keep the blog going for one calendar year and then slow it down a bit. I have an idea for a new project which I will start up for 2008.
Thank you, Mr. Stack!
I just want to highlight a few things. First, our author made good use of the feedback from his readers. Second, he kept track of his posts; although he doesn't say so, I would guess he noticed as moved them into Word files that were beginning to sort into loose categories. The switch from free-wheeling blogwriting to a more considered, less-draft-like approach also deserves our attention. Again Stack doesn't say, but it appears this happened before he was approached by a publisher.
One last thought ... do we think the Christmas timing for Stack's blook was based on the publication of the series that triggered Stack's blog?
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