The Fractured Mirror, a Magnificent Obsession.
When I do a crowd-funding campaign for a book, I generally give myself a year to finish it. I’m not entirely sure why, because I generally need a lot more time.
When I launched the Kickstarter campaign for The Fractured Mirror, an exhaustive exploration of American movies about filmmaking that will cover EVERY narrative film on the subject in addition to a fascinating variety of documentaries like American Movie, Overnight, and Hearts of Darkness, back in 2022, I gave myself a year and a half to finish it.
That was, in hindsight, very foolish. One of the nice things about being diagnosed as someone with bipolar, autism, and ADHD is that you have a number of very sound explanations for why you consistently screw up in a way that makes everything so much harder, to the point of seeming impossible.
To paraphrase the title of a book about autism that I will hopefully spend most of this year writing, for me, being neurodivergent is both a gremlin and a gift. It’s a mischievous force operating furtively in the darkness to fuck up my life, but it’s also something that has helped me professionally.
I thought that I’d write about 300 movies for The Fractured Mirror, but I ended up writing about something closer to 500.
That’s a lot! That’s more than a lot: that’s an insane amount of work, particularly when a maddeningly time and labor-intensive book represents only a portion of your career.
I wish I had lived in a world where I got a six-figure advance for The Fractured Mirror from a fancy publisher, the way I did for my 2009 debut, The Big Rewind, and could devote all my time to it.
I do not live in that world, however. I raised a little under fourteen thousand dollars through Kickstarter. It seemed like a healthy amount at the time, but it barely covers expenses.
Depending on how you count, it’s taken me between three and ten years to research and write The Fractured Mirror. I started writing The Fractured Mirror as a column for TCM Backlot in 2015, not long after I was let go from The Dissolve shortly before it ceased to exist.
The Fractured Mirror has consequently been a part of my career and life for a solid decade, but I’ve only seen it as a book for the last three years.
Incidentally, right before I launched the Fractured Mirror, I got a call from Dr. Demento’s manager, who wanted to know if I would be interested in working with him on his memoir. I could not have been more excited but I am a pessimist by nature, so I figured that I should have a massive project to throw myself into in case the Dr. Demento thing didn’t work out.
That was wise! Like so much in this world, that fell apart for reasons that I do not understand.
That’s not unlike how I launched My Year of Flops as a massive project to throw myself into in case I was unable to sell my memoir. I was able to sell my memoir but My Year of Flops arguably did more for my career than my first memoir.
I don’t want to humblebrag, but I have been solidly depressed for the three years I’ve been working intensely on The Fractured Mirror. I haven’t believed in myself, my abilities, or my judgment.
Yet I kept working and working and working until I had something wonderful and absolutely massive.
The Fractured Mirror is currently 508 pages. That’s twice as long as the average book because it covers nearly twice as much as I originally intended.
Being depressed and not believing in myself did not keep me from accomplishing great things. It did not keep me from writing my tenth book. That’s one of the upsides to being neurodivergent. Your brain doesn’t work the way others do.
The Fractured Mirror is the product of neurodivergence. It’s been my special interest, my magnificent obsession. ADHD made it hard to balance everything in my trainwreck of a life and career, but my autistic relentlessness empowered me to work through the pain, doubt, and misery to create something unique and uniquely wonderful.
I’m currently deep into the process of editing The Fractured Mirror. Every time my brilliant book designer sends me a draft of the book, I must immediately start working on it. My brain knows damn well that I have plenty of other work that might take precedence, but it also knows that I HAVE to finish The Fractured Mirror, and it has to be great. It has to justify all of the work that I have put into it. The people who donated to my Kickstarter campaign believed in me when I did not believe in myself. I have to justify that belief.
I have not been posting as regularly here as I would like because The Fractured Mirror takes precedence over everything else.
I am a mass of wild imperfections, but The Fractured Mirror gives me a chance to be a perfectionist. I can get everything right. I want my book to endure and matter in a way that online work does not.
I’m so close! Every draft I think I’m nearly done, but I’m not.
That’s my world right now. I want to do a podcast in connection with The Fractured Mirror but I cannot concentrate on it, or anything else, really, until I have finished The Fractured Mirror and it’s ready for publication.
I’m on my eighth draft right now. I’m going over everything with a magnifying glass because I want The Fractured Mirror to be as perfect as possible.
I’m nearly done. Or at least I think I am! God willing the next draft will be the one.
The stakes are high. My website rather stupidly lists The Joy of Trash as a new book when it’s been out for three years and sells poorly. The landing page for my website asked readers if they wanted to buy The Joy of Trash. I’m not exaggerating when I say that 99. 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 percent of the people who visit the site choose not to buy the book. That’s a shame. I’m biased, but I think it’s terrific.
I understand. Independent publishing is difficult. I'm not particularly well-suited for it, but I don’t have other options.
So, if I seem a little distracted, it’s because the most important thing in my life, except for my family, is The Fractured Mirror. I can’t wait to share it with y’all. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do that in the not-too-distant future.
Now that I’ve finished this blog post I can go back to working tirelessly on The Fractured Mirror. She is a harsh mistress but god willing, she will be worth the work and the wait.
Incidentally, you can preorder The Fractured Mirror through Backerkit here: https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, 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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