I Will Be Done With The Fractured Mirror by July 15th or Die Tryin'
I was diagnosed as Bipolar when I was deep into the research and writing of 2013’s You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me, a book about Phish and Insane Clown Posse fandom that morphed semi-unexpectedly into an exploration of mental illness because writing that book drove me out of my goddamn mind.
I love writing books. And I hate writing books. When I was initially diagnosed as Bipolar, I thought it was wrong. I felt like I’d had a manic episode during the drug-fueled two weeks I followed Phish via bus, train, and plane in the summer of 2011, but I did not think of myself as Bipolar.
I did not think of myself as Autistic or someone with ADHD then either.
For me, at least, writing and publishing books has been a profoundly bipolar experience that oscillates wildly between ecstasy and despair, irrational exuberance and abject misery.
My Saturday Night Live book project is a good example. I fell hopelessly in love with the idea of devoting years of my life to researching a series of books about Saturday Night Live to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.
The timing seemed perfect. The subject matter seemed perfect. I honestly felt like I had to announce my project as early as possible because otherwise, someone else would have my idea and make millions off it.
Looking back, that seems over-confident at best and delusional at worst. That’s the thing about mental illness and Bipolar2: your thoughts and behavior are not rational. They’re not sane. You do things that you do not understand for reasons that remain a mystery.
I was so afraid of the Indiegogo campaign for my Saturday Night Live books failing that I made a point of never checking it. I was worried that I’d look after three weeks and the overall tally would be so anemic that I’d lose the unshakeable belief in myself that I needed to make the project a success.
I idiotically only checked the total after the campaign had ended. At that point, mania gave way to depression. What I saw as a massive future success instead became a soul and ego-crushing current failure. I was so disappointed in myself. I’d once again let mental illness and procrastination sabotage my life and my career. Even more disastrously, I allowed it to affect the people that I work with as well.
A similar dynamic was at play with You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me. I love that book now. But when I was researching and writing it I came to hate it because I didn’t know if what I was writing was even publishable.
You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me was a huge success. I couldn’t be prouder of it. Sold ten thousand copies. Got a four star review in Rolling Stone. Changed the way people see Juggalos and Phish but I had no idea what kind of response it would receive at the time.
The Fractured Mirror, my upcoming book about American movie about filmmaking has driven me predictably insane.
In one form or another I have been working on it since 2015. It began life as a column at TCM Backlot but when they went out of business my editor very graciously allowed me to re-run all of the columns I had written for Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place and turn the column into a book.
I loved writing The Fractured Mirror but I worried that because it did not have a big sexy hook it’d be ignored and the commercial failure of The Joy of Trash hurt like hell.
Then again the Saturday Night Live books had a sexy, timely hook and those got off to an absolutely abysmal start.
I need to finish The Fractured Mirror. The time has come so I am stating here that the book will be in production by July 15th.
I originally intended to be done by July 1st but I want to do it justice and that takes time.
So if I do not publish here as often as usual, or miss the occasional assignment at Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas and Every Episode Ever it’s because I’m focussing on The Fractured Mirror.
I long for the joy of completion. I live for that wonderful moment when I hold my new book in my hands for the first time.
Being an expert self-sabotager, I always give myself ample room to fail. I’m not going to do that with The Fractured Mirror, however. I’m going to finish that book in a reasonable amount of time because I owe it to everyone who pre-ordered it but also because I owe it to myself. I’ve done an obscene amount of work on The Fractured Mirror. The last mile is predictably proving to be the hardest mile but I am going to finish this journey if it kills me.
Nathan needs teeth that work, and his dental plan doesn't cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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