My Next Book Will Be A Fantasy Novel
Hegemon Media updates.
Some updates regarding Hegemon Media and my writing:
New Book
Last week, I finished the first draft of my next book. It is a fantasy novel that clocks in at around 55k words. For reference, the first Harry Potter novel is 76k words. My previous book The Intactivist Guidebook is around 30k words and Children’s Justice is over 100k words. So this next book should be a short fast-paced read.
In talking with others about it, I’ve compared it to Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist (45k words, over 150 million copies sold) in that it is a clear allegorical story with spiritual themes. I’m not ready to disclose the full summary and title yet, but I will be sharing more about it as I get closer to release.
The current version is a good first draft. It mostly followed the outline and gave a few good surprises and discoveries in the writing process. The story is there, but it needs revising. Author Neil Gaiman has said that the second draft is when you make it look like you knew what you were doing the whole time. That’s where I’m at right now. By the third or fourth draft, it will be ready for early readers.
If I had to guess (and these things are always subject to change), I’ll spend the next 2-3 months editing and rewriting to release it early fall. I haven’t done a full “launch” for previous book projects, the way I would for a film. I intend to do that for this book since this book will appeal beyond the niche of my previous writing. This will add some time between completing the book and the release for building the launch, but I think it’ll be worth it.
Also, now that the first draft of the book is done, there will be more space in my life for other creative projects. While working on it, I’d get ideas for doing more podcasts or playing with new AI tools but knew that dabbling in those would take energy away from the novel I wanted to finish. The short-form content on social media has been a good way to keep sharing ideas with all of you, but as the book becomes complete, there will be more room for other projects.
Changing Hegemon Media
Since I have a new novel coming, I’ll be shifting my focus to include other non-Children’s Justice writing on Hegemon media.
I debated creating a new substack to keep Children’s Justice and other writing separate but decided that would just be confusing and divide my efforts. Instead, I created a section just for Children’s Justice material and moved all articles that relate to that to the new section.
While I still intend to write about Children’s Justice issues, this substack will be expanding to include other writing relating to whatever I’m working on, including the new novel (and maybe my first narrative feature film after that?).
I’ve also updated the logo for Hegemon Media:
The old logo will appear on Children’s Justice material and the new on other projects. Both were created when I first launched this site, but I’m bringing one of the early designs back to differentiate between general and Children’s Justice writing.
Giveaways
If you subscribe to Hegemon Media, you will get:
Link to watch my documentary American Circumcision for free
Read the first chapter of The Intactivist Guidebook for free
Read the first three chapters of Children’s Justice for free
Read a free sample from my next book when it is released
Consider subscribing or upgrading your subscription to get these.