Book startup

So far I've only done some exploration research for the book I'm about to write, but today work begins for real. I've decided on chapters long ago, but not sure it's a good split to cut across sub-disciplines in the field though, so I'll spend some time on this.

I'm going to use markdown, which is really a no-brainer. I'll do some exploration on the available editors, but I didn't like MarkdownPad 2 for the simple reason that it only allows raw editing. When writing a book I feel that wading through all that clutter can severely affect your flow. (If there is such a thing, which I suppose there is, it corresponds to the programmer Zone.)

The introduction chapter in a controversial non-fiction book is exceptionally important. I'll try to let my guard down as I've seen the mistake of "covering all bases" too often in the science literature. The researchers know they're going to get stomped with all the tonnage the sceptics can bring about, but it often leads to books that are boring to the mainstream and rest of the science community.

As a test of what works and what doesn't, I'll write a few introductions today as an exploratory test to avoid the refinement trap:

The title is probably equally important, I don't want people seing "yet another one of those hippie books which just boil down to self-loathing, drugs and spritual awakening." So it needs to be modern, snappy, young, cool and fresh.

I want to keep the tone of the book light and airy, but with hard facts. I'll reference the facts in the book, but in the paper version I'll make 'em interfere as little as possible with the rest of the text by using the page number and a per-page reference number. That way I can squeeze in thousands of references without getting something¹²³⁴ that looks¹²³⁵ like this¹²³⁶. Even though very few readers will check the references, I'm confident they will add umph to the work.

I'll also try to keep the tone serious with the occasional gag here and there. Humor is an important aspect, but being from the ironic generation I feel it's important to not let it take over so I won't alienate the rest. In my experience humor works best when interspaced properly and kept low-key. I really love some of Jeff Atwood's pieces, so I'll steal some of his ideas and "novelize" them.

Lastly I'll just let it gush out. I'm going to write it down and then fix it later. What I usually do in everything I write, such as this blog, or e-mail to co-workers and friends, is that I edit, re-write, go back, move around sentences and parts thereof, re-read and so on and so forth in many iterations before I settle on something. I assume the first version of the book will come out awful when I just transliterate thoughts to text, but instead I'll come back later, catch the intent and do my exploration from there. I'll do so in the introduction chapter to evaluate. If it works well, I'll do the same throughout the rest of the book.

Mm-mm, this is gonna be fun!!!