50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
Couple of nifty news items that I think are pretty cool:
Mr. Picasso Head rules.
My first attempt is here.
My second attempt is here.
(found at bOINGbOING)
When I started to write this, there were almost 450 comments, and 20 trackbacks to my last entry. I also saw that some Trek news places picked up O’Reilly’s press release.
I’m really overwhelmed with the outpouring of joy and congratulations that are on this site, and in my Inbox. All I can really do is say thank you. I am incredibly touched and incredibly lucky to be the focus of so much positive energy and happiness.
I haven’t even had time to sit back and absorb the impact, though, because Anne and I had our house appraised today, and we spent about 12 hours a day for 6 days getting out shit together. All that landscaping we’d been putting off got done, and all the piles and piles of junk that had accumulated around my office finally got cleaned up. I hear that it’s easier to write in a clean and uncluttered space . . . but I’ve done it in chaos for so long, I wonder if this serenity will have any noticeable effect.
Heh. Serenity. There’s a pornstar joke there, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’ll just use it as an excuse to link Jenna Jameson’s website. Maybe she’ll see the fives of hits she gets, and then we can trade action figures!
Okay, I don’t know how I ended up on some pornstar rant there . . . must be the exhaustion and relief I feel now that the appraisal is over. And, to be honest, I feel a little lost in this insanely clean house we now have. I realized this morning that I’ve lived here for five years, and today was the second time I’d actually taken the screens off and done hardcore cleaning on the windows. Turns out the sky out my office window isn’t always as grey as I thought it was.
So what happens next?
I get to spend much more time working on the Just A Geek rewrites, because O’Reilly wants the book out in Spring of 2004. I’ll also do some media junk for the national release of Dancing Barefoot, probably in January.
A lot of people wanted to know what animal will be on my Website book. The answer is, I don’t know. I hear that rookie ORA authors (like me) don’t get to choose their own animal . . . but wouldn’t a monkey at a typewriter just be the coolest?
Some VH-1 news, too! The network is still committed to the show, and I think we found a guy to interview. I probably shouldn’t say exactly what it is, but it’s fucking hilarious. I have to go out the the East coast to film it, probably in January, and I’ll see if I can get some sort of book signing while I’m up there. As always, I’ll blather on about it right here if / when it happens.
I’m going to go fall onto the couch for about an hour now.
Yesterday, (well, today, actually. I’m composing this at 8:16pm on Monday, while Anne and Ryan assemble a desk, because I won’t have time tomorrow to write this up) while I was digging a hole in my yard, I thought to myself, Man, there’s been a big build up to this. People are expecting a major announcement, and there’s no way it will live up to expectations.
One of these years, I’ll find some way to not be so goddamn insecure. It’s in my nature. Just part of being a nerd, I guess.
So, without (much) further ado . . .
There’s been a lot of speculation about the epic announcement. Ideas have included:
There were some who thought it was acting related, and a few who thought it was literary related.
If you were one of the very few in that last group, you totally win a pizza and a trophy, because . . .
I have totally signed a three book deal with a major publisher. O’Reilly & Associates, to be precise.
Okay, I’m totally trying to play it all cool, but . . .
HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP!! WOOOO!!!!!! ROCK!
YEAH!!! KICK ASS BABY!!! UNGH!!! UNGH!!!
*pant*
*pant*
Sorry. I’ve been getting those massive rushes of excitement with alarming frequency. I hope you all understand.
This is a very exciting relationship for me, for several reasons. First, I am a huge geek, and without O’Reilly, I wouldn’t know HTML from LMNOP. I never would have been able to get Linux running, and Perl would be one of the not-quite-as-good-as-Mrs.-Garrett replacements on Diff’rent Strokes.
This means I will be able to get my books into more stores than I ever was with Monolith Press. It means I’ll be sent out on a real book signing tour. It means I’ll be on national television and radio to promote my work, and maybe even get a review in major newspapers or magazines.
Dancing Barefoot sold 3,000 copies in less than five months, without any of that, and I can’t wait to see how it does when it’s got the power and budget of a major publisher behind it.
It also means that I will never royally screw up days worth of orders again, and I will be free to work like crazy on Just A Geek because I won’t be running the business any more.
I spoke with my editor at O’Reilly this morning (” . . . my editor at O’Reilly!” that sounds so cool!), and he told me that O’Reilly is so excited to carry Dancing Barefoot, they’re going to have a printing available in time for the holidays. They are currently working on a plan with Powells to get it out there right away, and I understand that they are in talks with Amazon as well. If you’ve been kicking yourself in the pants, or punching yourself in the back of the head because you wanted Dancing Barefoot for a holiday gift and missed out, you can stop the madness right now!
It should be in most major book stores very soon and y — Oh my god! I’m going to walk into Vroman’s and see my book on the shelf!!! AHHH!!! That RULES!
RAWK! \m/
Oops. There it goes again. 🙂
O’Reilly will also publish Just A Geek in Spring of next year, and I’m going to write a currently untitled technical book on personal website design that I think will come out in Summer.
So, you see, when I made my audioblog post back in July, I had just gotten off the phone with Brett from O’Reilly, who had called to tell me that none other than Tim O’Reilly himself had come back from OSCon talking about “the Wil Wheaton phenomenon” and instructed Brett to tell me that he wanted to be my publisher. Since that day, we’ve been working out the details. They were actually finalized a few weeks ago, but we all decided to wait until today to release this epic news, because I guess December 2 is a good day to release news, and there’s a good chance some mainstream media outlets will pick this up.
I want all of you who read WWdN to know that none of this would ever have happened without you. Many of you have been here since the early days of Where’s My Burrito?. In this strange, impersonal-but-personal way, you’ve gone with me through the ups and downs (mostly downs) of my Sisyphean struggles in the acting world. You were excited with me when I was added to Nemesis and cried with me when I was cut. You have been there when I’ve loved, and when I’ve lost. I’ve introduced you to Ryan and Nolan, Ferris, and Anne, who is more than my world . . . she’s my entire universe.
You’ve supported me so much . . . I can’t tell you all how wonderful it feels to share my tremendous joy with all of you now. Everyone who has read Dancing Barefoot, or come to see me at a show, or left a comment on this site, Soapboxers, Farkers, Slashdotters . . . I’m sure I’m forgetting people . . . but every single one of you owns a piece of this amazing new chapter in my life.
Tomorrow, I will make an epic announcement, following up on this audioblog post I made all the way back in July. In the post, I think I said something like, “I’ll update this in a week or so,” or something like that . . . well, that week or so ends tomorrow.
Happy December, everyone.
(heh. When I typed that, I hit the “3” so it looked like “Happy Decemb3r” — I am so 31337, i wil pwN j00, 5uXX0r!)