Why was Irie Offered Another Publishing Deal? (Part 4)

The Future of the Internet

I want to write. Lost interest in being a sports agent. And anyway, that business gets caught up in the economic mess of 2007. Income evaporated. Wife departs. I observe ruin as an inert onlooker. Should admit (at least to myself) that neither lifting a finger nor saying a word is to endorse this change. The upside, I have the perfect alternative for real-life misery. A virtual world. Second Life. ‘It’s the next big thing!’ they say.

A few years earlier, in quest of something distracting, I download the Second Life software, create an appalling-looking mini-me, pursue the common strategy of wandering around.  I become bored almost instantly; never will excel as a chatty human being. 

An inner whisper. ‘But this is supposed to be your second life.’ 

A second life?  I chew over the concept – then click back into settings, change my avatar’s appearance, reaching for opposites in their most absolute.

Irie Tsure (i-ree tee-sha) is born. She is a short, slight woman of indeterminable origin. She has long blonde hair, a button nose, an animated bounce in her little-legs walk. Ms Tsure shares my disinterest in extended chit-chat and for obvious reasons (to me) remains unentangled with Second Life’s predominant pastime, virtual romance and cybersex. Instead, she busies herself building. She will evolve into a Second Life powerhouse.

Irie Tsure ‘Likkle Lioness’

The Second Life platform provides opportunity to learn and deploy an array of captivating skills; 3D modelling, Photoshop, live streaming, DJing, script-coding to name a handful of the most obvious. 

Over a couple of years, this casual pastime develops into Irie Vibes – at the time, the largest reggae community in the history of mankind – a virtual resort of over 7,500 members, three nightclubs with 50 plus DJs from around the world entertaining a perpetual throng. There are spaces to live, play, work, chill, and shop. Virtual real estate valued in tens of thousands of US Dollars. Income from this in-world business makes meaningful contributions towards real-world bills. Second Life is thriving, my virtual escape being spoken of as The Future of the Internet, and lucky for me, Hodder want in.

The Irie Vibes Estate

Hodder’s Publishing Committee approves the Commissioning Editor’s recommendation with one proviso – two titles instead of the single work proposed. ‘Teach Yourself Getting Started’ along with ‘Teach Yourself Making Money’ in the Second Life world.

I budgeted for a twelve month project on the basis of one edition, but feel both Second Life volumes can be composed simultaneously. I agree to deliver two image-rich manuscripts within a year.  Contracts are exchanged and I set to work – on a four month break.

My process, an interlude of reflection precedes the physical task of dropping words onto any page. A period of mental pre-arranging, pondering, exploring and preparing.  To the unknowing this may appear as doing nothing – and mostly they’d be right – but not always. 

Tension builds, time passes – until the deadline peeps unavoidably over the horizon.  Two books, one hundred thousand words, eight months. Better get a wriggle on.

For me, it is too much to complete two books within eight months. I know this is true as I must spend thirteen days out of fourteen, sixteen hours a day in order to deliver to this deadline. I know I could never, would never want to go through that blurry experience again. To make the task more arduous, I insist on creating bespoke cover art for each edition, a first for the Teach Yourself brand. Can you tell that I’m particularly proud of these?

The manuscripts are completed to schedule. Prose is conversational, ideas are insightful, clear and not repeated. Nailed it.

But submitting the polished drafts is akin to hitting a tree. An exercised mind, in an instant, from top speed to dead stop. The whiplash is all but lethal.

Exacerbating the brain sprain, the ritual of posting final manuscripts feels funereal in significance. The all-consuming passion done, dusted, and sent away. The cherished, never returning. An affirming relationship, all at once over. I am bereaved. A death-like hole in life.

With mind still racing, with no useful grip, thinking spins fast into turmoil. Suddenly, brutal collisions with hard matters. Injurious emotional issues avoided thus far – such as letting go of business, my family, the dream of belonging. 

Internal chaos becomes a moment for dramatic moves…