Sorry for the lack of updates this week. Just A Geek is in its final stages, and I’ve been working very closely with O’Reilly to help it across the finish line. It’s a lot more work than I ever thought to get this stuff finished. Each time I think I’m done, I find out there’s something more to do. I like it, though, and I have enjoyed working with O’Reilly to pull this all together.
Just A Geek is so much more than a story to me, as weird as that may seem. It’s a huge part of my heart and soul, and represents two years of very intense work . . . and I’ve been a little concerned that they may not “get” exactly how much it means to me, you know? I’ve been nervous about walking that delicate line between art and commerce.
I am happy to report that this week, I’ve learned that not only do they “get” it . . . they grok it. I also found out that the printing date has been moved up, so the book will be released even sooner than I originally thought. I still don’t know the exact date, but I’ll be sure to announce it here when I do.
One of the cool things we’ve done this week is come up with a tagline for the book. I didn’t want to use one originally, but I guess taglines are a big part of getting undecided readers to pull the book off the shelf and give it consideration, so my editor and marketing manager were cool enough to hold my hand while we worked to come up with . . .
Just A Geek : Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise
I’ve been having a very hard time describing my story to people in just a few words, but now I can do it. That tagline totally distills the story down to its essence, and I think it’s super-cool.
I was telling Anne a few days ago how I just can’t seem to pull enough creative energy together to write anything cool, because I think it’s piling up behind the Just A Geek logjam. I mentioned that Vegas story a few weeks ago, and it’s been kicking around in the back of my mind . . . I think I have the beginnings of a spine, and that’s nifty. It will be the first work of 100% fiction I’ve done here, and it’s sort of a test for me.
Hey, speaking of Vegas, I will definitely be at the Creation Vegas Convention from July 29 (MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!111one!!) until August 1, and EarnestBorg9 is doing one of our awesome improv shows on Friday, July 30, around 8 at night. I’m also performing from Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot that day too, so if you want to get the most Wheaton for your buck, Friday the 30th will be the day to come out. If you’re planning on attending, it would be cool to let Creation know that you’re coming out to see me or EB9. For some reason they don’t believe me when I tell them that people want to see us, even when we fill rooms to capacity.
That’s all for today. I have to go back to work. Tune in tomorrow for an exciting announcement.
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Hey, I really like that tagline… extremely cool ! ! ! 🙂
YAYYYYYYYY…. first post ! ! ! Heh…
Are you saying that you won’t make it to the San Diego Comic Con? =\ Since that’s near the end of July also, I dont think they overlap, but I dont know if you’d like to go to 2 cons so close together. Was hoping you’d be there? i’d like to attend a reading or performance and such… =(
If I wasn’t already interested in reading JAG, that tagline would get me to pick up the book and give it a try. Congrats on 2 years of hard work, it’s all coming together now, and I bet it feels great.
“I never saw anybody more determined to be a geek than you are,” he said.
A geek, of course, is a man who lies in a cage on a bed of filthy straw in a carnival freak-show and bites the heads off live chickens and makes subhuman noise, and is billed as having been raised by wild animals in the jungles of Borneo. He has sunk as low as a human being can sink in the American social order, except for his final resting place in a potter’s field.–Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird, chapter 4
Great tagline…..Very Kwel. At times it is very difficult to know if you convey to others just how much of your heart and soul you have put into something. What point do you pull back or push on…a very fine line and one so difficult to find at times…I know you found yours for you are portraying it well even now. Good luck….Was so excited to come across your blog and to find such talent in your writing as well.
Welcome back, I was going to call Leonard Nemoy.
(let it sink in, you’ll get it)
Dude!
My Birthday is August 1st! Maybe it is time for bday in Vegas!
As a (wannabe) screenwriter, I always have difficulty coming up with the “logline’ for my stories. I really like the JAG one though.
Good luck with the logjam, have a listen to Slaid Cleaves’ “Breakfast in Hell” for a great floks-y logjam breaking lumberjack song that is sure to spark your creative juices!
DUDE would you PLEASE come to Seattle already?!! I can’t afford to go galivanting around to see you in sin city, although I’d LOVE to go. Please do a book signing here either at Barnes and Noble or Elliott Bay Books downtown in the evening. 😉
’cause its all about me and MY schedule.
How’s kitty?
wow. i think its great that your an actor and a writer. i want to be an author too someday, but everyone thinks that because im only 14, im too young. im looking forward to you Just A Geek book when it comes out 🙂
~*Jamie*~
I shamefully admit that I haven’t yet gotten Dancing Barefoot. I will though and I’m insanely excited about Just A Geek. I’m glad to hear that the publishing co is working WITH you and not against you. It’s awesome to hear that some companies out there do listen to what their artist say. I think a lot of it has to do with how candid and honest you are on this site.
I’ll be here for the exciting news, whatever it may be. By the way, when are ya’ll gonna have some baby Wil and Anne’s?
I’m so sad I can’t make it to the convention in Vegas this year . . . especially since July 30th is my birthday; what a great birthday treat that would have been! Oh well, hopefully next year. 🙂
oh sure… go to vegas 2 weeks before i have to be there. RATS!
It’s cool that they grok the Geek. I think the tag line works in a mass market sense, but I think you titled the book perfectly in the first placce. I am now joining Andrea in the overt pleading for a stop in Seattle.I’ve always got a spare front seat if you need a place to crash 🙂
i love inertia creeps. i love massive attack.
That rocks. Now im really looking forward to the release of your new book. Has anyone bought the movie rights yet?
Wow, I was just thinking about that first thread in the books forum about how many of us would be interested in getting a hard cover copy of JAG and here you are now.. about to have it released by O’Reilly publishers and you get to be in Vegas(baby) on your birthday!
How cool is that?
The process of getting from then to now was an interesting journey all its own.
You have come a long way HMIC. 😉
And the Missus was all cool and stuff with all this handholding without her around?
That is a most excellent tagline, btw.
Hmm. I think the last time we saw “Tune in Tomorrow for an exciting announcement,” or something similar, it took about two months to find out you were signed on by O’Reilly. Please don’t make us wait again HMIC!!! I can’t wait that long!!
[/spaz]
By the way, I agree that tagline ROCKS! It so perfectly sums up what you have written in your blog since I’ve been reading it!
Rock on Uncle Willie!
GRATz! on the achievement and progress of everything! All the details and hardwork are coming altogether nicely now for you. Can’t wait for the book to be available to us Cdns! 😀
RAWK ON Willyman!
I finally got one of your song references. Yay!
I got Dancing Barefoot a couple months ago, read it and enjoyed it. One of my cats enjoyed it, too, she chewed up the cover. I should have kept it in a mylar sleeve. *sigh*
Finally! Something that makes living in Vegas worthwhile. I think I may actually emerge from my humble cave for this one. =)
“…the search for life, love and fulfillment”,
“to boldly go where no man has gone before”.
Sounds familiar. Thanks so much for sharing your life with us.
Freeman 🙂
You are such a tease Wil. Tell me the news already!
Great subject line – my favourite song from Mezzanine…
In my home no chrome as clear as
See me now with my nearest dearest
Been there when I’m over careering
Room shifting is endearing
Between us is our kitchen
Would you found my irritant’s itching
Been here before
Been here forever
One of my friends is travelling (from Australia) to that particular convention, I am just so jealous of him. With Enterprise (possibly) being pulled and Star Trek slowly dying (it’s sad but true) I can’t help but think that I should sell my car and get my butt over to the US and see a Trek Convention before it is too late.
Wil, would your news have anything to do with the little blurb currently running over on The Joy of Tech, just under today’s comic? Which, incidentally, is also Wil Wheaton-related…:-)
(I also happen to be a Solid Nitrozanium Superfan, After Y2K Official Fan Club Member #7, and I own a “Wil Wheaton’s Run” T-shirt.)
At the end of his Foreward to Ecce Homo, Nietszche says, “And so I tell myself my life.” Your book is more than just a literary work, it is an aesthetic work that tells yourself as well as an audience who you are. So it’s not weird at all that it’s more than a story to you. I look forward to reading it.
Wow! Your birthday is one day after mine! That’s awesome, I think I will brag to all my friends that my birthday is just one day before Wil Wheaton’s.
Then, of course, they will say, “Who the heck is Wil Wheaton?” So then I will send them to your site. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?
How can “Creation” not believe people are coming to see you.
Haven’t they seen this site, and read/counted the responses?.
You could do a
Very cool tagline. And I’m agreeing with Griff, I’m all for the ‘one man show.’
and you think your site gets tons of hits now, just wait till your book comes out and all the advertising comes forth.
I forsee future downtime cause of crashes….
Possible? Perhaps.
Good luck Wil.
July 29… It’s MY BIRTHDAY too!
Wish I could be there…
The best I can do is to make someone buy me your book as a special present (Leos love the attention).
– Paulinhakz
Sao Paulo, Brazil.
(MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!111one!!) … You’re going to be 71, Wil? Did you mean 11one? Hmmm…imdb’s birthdate for you is ’72, so maybe 11two? Happy b-day, anyway!
DAG! i will be in vegas 2 weeks earlier, unfortunate.
Wil, you are amazing. Is it weird to say that I’m proud of you? Oh well. I’m proud of you, Wil Wheaton. Congratulations on all the JAG stuff, man! It’s been a long time coming and I, for one, can’t wait!!
Fantastic news! I’m pre-ordering the book now(I can do that, right?) and with a tag line like that, it will be much easier to get my family and friends to read it too. It’s hard being the only geek in the family. *sigh.
I also put my vote in for Seattle! Always wanted to visit there again.
Wow. Sounds really interesting…still don’t get it though. BTW, what is “Just a Geek”? Mabye I’m stupid or somthing…
Cool blog by the way. I have a not-so-famous one at http://bloghogger.blogspot.com
good day~
Damnit Mr. Wheaton (SIR!)…. Where’s my exciting announcement?
Darn it, I’m busy that weekend…you should work around *my* schedule!!!
So, when’s the book being released, bub? I work in a library, and I wanna order it!
Uncky Wilbur is molto talented as well as being a nice guy…..lot’s o’ luck continuing….
Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggh!
Yet another delayed teaser announcement from the Wheaster. I think the last one ended up getting dragged on for months. My pacemaker really can’t take this.
Great to hear that JAG is finishing up. Three more days! Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait to read it!
Can’t wait to get JAG. I bought Dancing Barefoot for my aunt, she read it at work and was laughing so loud that her co-workers wanted to read it. DB is now making the rounds at work, and when auntie gets it back she will pass it on to uncle D. Which is fitting because it was Auntie M and Uncle D who got me hooked on Star Trek in the first place.
I need to send her here next…
Hey WIL!
I am so happy that your work goes as soon as you thinking!
You need to go on holiday after this hard work
OOHHH! Tomorrow, my prince D. Felipe will get married
Hey WIL!
I am so happy that your work goes as soon as you thinking!
You need to go on holiday after this hard work
OOHHH! Tomorrow, my prince D. Felipe will get married
Dood I might buy the book, but dam man, your teeth are hella yellow. You need to do something about that.
Long live hooba-stank!
RAWK! \m/
Glad to hear that JAG is nearly ready for printing! After reading Dancing Barefoot quite a few times, I’m ready for more. You’re an wonderful storyteller, Wil, and JAG should be nothing short of phenomemal.
Anyway, back to life as usual. Gotta get to work and show 200 screaming little kids Shrek 2. Speaking of which, grab Anne and the boys and go see this flick. It’s as funny, if not more so, than the first one! You four have lifetime passes at the Rowland Theatre if you’re ever in Central PA…
Total props, man!
[fanboy gush=”gush”]I must say, it’s damn reassuring that someone as (in)famous as yerself is “just this guy, y’know?” ::laugh:: I mean, how cool is it to know that I share several interests—cats, conventions, D&D, blogging, etc.—with The Wil Wheaton?![/fanboy] Anyway, just to let you know, I’ll be searching the shelves for your books…just as soon as I’ve some disposable income.
Cheers!
Um, I don’t get it, I thought the book was about Wil’s life, but, after I read his post it said it’s 100% fiction, so is it made up story about his life? or is it his life? huh?
Will,
A year ago your blog was political and full of anger about the war. Now despite the pictures from Abu Ghraib, its all about you. Have you given up politics? Please say no.