Working on the next book, sort of

Stuck. Frozen. Paralyzed.

I have about 164 blog posts selected for my next book. I started reading through them again, until I began to wonder how to organize them.

Which goes first? Which goes last? Should I put posts with similar themes together, and what should those themes be? 

Do you know how many ways to shuffle 164 items? Permutations are fascinating but also mind-boggling, and about 20 minutes into the process, I declared my mind boggled, picked up the pen, and began writing this passage in my journal.

Part of me wants to just toss all the posts into a pile and publish them in the order they were chosen, and let you, the reader, find the rhymes and reasons to it all. The old English major in me wants to puzzle through and find the patterns, then painstakingly assemble the puzzle pieces in a way that the opening and closing and everything in between are logical for anyone with discernment.

Is this why it took decades for Brian Wilson to assemble the pieces of Smile into a coherent whole?

With so many fragments, there probably is no single correct answer, and if I embark on this journey today, I will surely come up with a different order than if I had embarked two weeks ago or if I try again in a month. 

I want the flow to be somewhere between random and obvious. Not unlike the daily flow of these blog posts, who knows what direction I may go next? It’s all so unpredictable.

(Overthinking again: I wonder if my lack of predictability contributes to the rather low numbers of readers who pass this way. If every day I reminisced about comic books or fine old records or old-time radio or movies or the fruits of the Spirit, would I build an actual following? Maybe, but how soon would I get bored doing the same thing every day?)

I shall make another approach another day. 

Maybe if I chose a title for the book, or made a list of possible titles, I would be able to focus on what belongs where. Stay tuned.