The Making of ROOK

The Making of ROOK

It’s hard to say when work on ROOK officially began.

Was it when I drunkenly scribbled some notes on Google™ Keep?

Was it the first time I met Aaron for to discuss the idea?

Maybe it was the second time we met to talk.

It could have been after our initial Sunday call or when we completed that first chapter which now only has shades of the original text.

Whatever it was, I’m glad I kept a few keepsakes so the jury that eventually tries us for high treason can have a clear “when and where“ we were both physically and mentally.

May the punishment be swift.

The original concept, our first meeting meal (deep fried deviled eggs) and the first time we took notes. 

A mood-board used to help inspire. I don’t think Aaron ever looked at it.


These are a few pages I threw together early in 2018 to help keep my thoughts in one place. It was also the first document I sent to Aaron in order to trick him into thinking I knew what I was doing.

It worked.


The map did not get any kind of juice going and in fact only created more suffering. The thought was if I could better see the RMZ, I could write about it more confidently. I ended up just focusing on details that did not matter.

A tip to any future authors or anyone looking to start a food blog: DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME MAKING MAPS.


In August 2020 Aaron drove to LA where we did a great deal of work fixing plot holes and such. Some chapters were changed for the better or cut entirely. Overall I’d call it a therapeutic experience.

Since my eyes don’t work good, Aaron wrote everything that needed to be done or reworked on giant sheets of paper.
It was very nice of him.

Publishing

After a year of writing, proofreading, editing and so on…the book was finally done. Kinda.

About 2 months before we launched the book, the dreaded suggestion left my brain “wHaT iF tHe boOk hAd QR cOdeS??”

What a fucking idiot.

Years of therapy and self reflection have left me with a single conclusion: my brain likes chaos. It’s the only explanation why I would suggest such an awesome/stupid idea.

On top of getting a website set up, going through the Amazon™ approval process, creating multiple ePUB versions of the book, we decided to record a video discussing each chapter.

Idiots.

Do I regret it?

Of course.

Am I glad we did it.

Yes.

Did we invent something new?

Maybe(?)

I’m sure one day Dan Brown will do something similar. Suicide rates will once again rise in US and he’ll be praised for his new, original idea. Either way, that doesn’t matter. What matters is we followed through with a bad idea. That’s the lesson here.

What else?

I don’t think I have much else to say. I love this book, I loved writing it and I’m happy we got to make something of substance. Are we going to write another one? I hope so. When this journey started satire had about 10% relevancy left within the collective human mind-o-sphere. After everything that has happened in life, the world and whatever the hell Zack Snyder is doing I just don’t know if our sense of humor or storytelling resinates with anything.

I got through a lot of life by laughing at insecurities or burying troubled feelings. It wasn’t healthy. There was always an expectation that came from the invisible voice in my head. Thoughts like “Don’t make a video unless it’s the best thing ever made”, “Don’t talk about a subject unless you are an expert in everything related to that topic” and so on and so forth.

I think curiosity is good, blind confidence: not so much. Unfortunately the latter is rewarded more than I think it should. Call me an disillusioned millennial/gen-x wannabe but I like to question things. I like to challenge authority, go against norms and see the other side of things. I think gray is more interesting than black and white.

I don’t feel like the world agrees with any of that. Or maybe it’s just the loud ones getting all the attention that drown out the patient people.

Anywho, that’s a very long “why” ROOK 2/ROOKS/ROOK$ hasn’t been touched yet. With that said, it’s something I think about daily. That’s why I updated this post, I doubt anyone will see it and that’s ok. We created something in a dying medium expecting people to read words good.

So what have we been doing? I can’t say. Literally, like, we’re legally bound to keep our traps shut. It’s cool and it’s something that has value beyond just the two of us.