Real quick, in case you are new here, I once wrote some short-form stuff back in my early 30s in the early 2000s. Gave up on it entirely, conceding that I’d never be a writer. Fine. No big deal. I got on YouTube and started to express myself that way. Then October 2025 rolls around and I decide I’m going to self-publish all those older writings. But then something unexpected happened: I started to write. Like my channel, stuff just came pouring out. I continued to add stuff all the way up until around July of 2026, with sprinklings here and there after, though the bulk of it was pretty much done.
Let’s get right to it! Here are a few of the reasons why this first novel of mine is taking so long get self-published and in your hands or on your screen, with the biggest reason to follow after this list:
- It went from a simple 15k word anthology of short form writings to an unprecedented, unexpected, and unplanned 100k+ (not far off from 200k) word monstrosity. At one point in late 2025 I thought it’d be out by Spring. No. I continued to write until the thing crawled into bed one night, slithered into my ear, and whispered “It is done”.
- Writing at 54 (back in 2025) I had to catch up to speed and learn a few things! Like what an Em Dash is, making sure my modifiers aren’t dangling, and more stuff I won’t bore you with. I had the basics of writing from back in the 2000s, but had plenty more to learn!
- Being the independent creative that I am and planning to self-publish, I had (no, want, not had, I could easily pay someone but I’m an artist/anarchist/DIY mother fucker so I’ll do everything myself with no middleman) to learn to do my own proofreading, editing, line editing, copy editing, setting up the program I use with the correct margins, page and paragraph styles, all of it, by myself, with the help of AI teaching me a few things along the way.
- It’s an original, unique, avant-garde work of experimental fiction that incidentally, spontaneously, and organically blends Second-Person, Metafiction, New Weird, Bizarro, Bureaucratic Satire, Comedy, Horror, Survival Horror, Ergodic Literature, and perhaps a few more elements and genres.
- I run a YouTube channel which was my primary creative outlet until said book came out of nowhere and blind-sided me. I’ve had to juggle these two projects the entire time. Finally, around July or so, YouTube took a proper back seat as I moved into the final stages of polishing the manuscript.
But the primary reason for the delay is twofold:
- A massive, unprecedented amount of worldbuilding and lore in a Second-Person, Metafictional book where all the internal logic has to hold up. Meaning, despite how absurd things get, they still have to make sense. Continuity.
- Moderate , controlled, late additions: As I finished the main prose and narrative back in July I think it was, and moved to the editing stages (2nd, 3rd draft, etc.), I not only was correcting and tightening the prose, but I was adding things. Not to add fluff, purple prose, or unnecessary bloat, but seveeral lines here and there that enhanced the worldbuilding, horror, or comedy. In other words, I’m still writing, but not a ton. Again: moderate, controlled bursts here and there.
To expand upon the continuity and internal logic:
For example, and this isn’t in my book, but say there are flying hippos that talk and shoot lasers out of their nostrils. Okay, fine. But just that one addition introduces a host of questions: How big are they? How fast can they fly? Did they learn to fly, evolve, or have jet packs? How high can they go? What kind of wings do they have? What kind of lasers? What material can the lasers penetrate? What language do the hippos talk? Who can understand them? Do they poop? Do they have personalities? Their own cultures, politics, and entertainment?
So because my book is fictional, and 2nd person, and meta-fictional, and a shit ton of lore and worldbuilding, there’s all these little things like the hippos that I’ve created and introduced that have to be accounted for, and subsequently spiral out into the narrative that one has to be aware of in earlier or later chapters. It’s a butterfly effect, for real! It’s no joke. Meaning, you can’t have that flying hippo reappear in a later chapter doing something a flying laser-shooting hippo shouldn’t do, like walk. Or shoot bullets.
And over the last couple of months, I’ve actually been waking up with my mind reminding me of “hey, remember such and such you wrote in that one chapter? well did you think about this aspect?” And so there’s been all these little continuity things I’ve needed to tweak or add (sometimes cut but rarely) so that the internal logic holds up across 100k+ words and 500+ pages!
That’s why it’s taking 13 months now as of the date of this post. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s grueling, but at 55 years old (well starting at 54) it’s the one job I truly and finally love more than making videos because videos cannot compete to the absolute and infinite amount of freedom that one has with writing, especially with fiction.
So if you’ve been patiently waiting for this book of mine to come out, trust me when I say it’ll be worth it if you like books with lots of lore, not to mention comedy, horror, etc., etc.
But yeah, today November 11, 2026 I came across yet another thing that I introduced months ago that has an implication I never thought of, so I needed to come up with a solution in order for the internal logic to hold up. And I did, without having to rewrite or cut anything.
So there you go. While writing fictional is an absolute blast, writing 2nd person meta-fictional, new weird, absurdist stuff is a challenge, but it’s fun and rewarding as all get out.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my 3rd draft or my 4th draft where I’m now tweaking things and making sure everything is copacetic.
Cheers!