A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it.

***

My left eyelid has been twitching for the past month or so.

It’s a quick, intermittent fluttering, like my eyelid is trying to send me distress signals in Morse code.

“We haven’t been getting enough sleep,” my eyelid taps out.

“ABORT. We are sTreSS*d,” it taps.

“You are currently 97% coffee,” it warns. “R U ok?”

Which is my way of explaining my absence here these past few weeks: I have been heads down and frantically grasping every moment I have to finish up the final draft of this infuriating my delightful new book.

A few weeks ago I found out that its deadline was not—”I repeat NOT,” Eye Twitch shouts—the end of June, as sweet, clueless me had been thinking back in April when I was happy and young and innocent.

Instead, the deadline was cold-splash-of-water-May 15. A full 40 days and 40 nights earlier than I expected.

You can do a lot in 40 days and 40 nights.

You can survive a flood in Noah’s Ark. Wait for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai. Endure a quarantine. Procrastinate doing actual work by researching how the word quarantine comes from the Italian quaranta giorni—literally 40 days—the isolation period for ships during plague-era Venice. Should I rabbit-hole research a Venice trip…?

For me, the 40 days/40 nights was a hyper-frantic, self-quarantined final push to the deadline. At the end, I died fully dead. I did not rise again three days later. It took a few weeks.

But I buried the lead—the deadline! I hit it! Please clap!

The draft is done. Eyelid Twitch lingers. It’s called eyelid myokymia, by the way: a mild, involuntary spasm of the upper eyelid muscle. It typically resolves on its own, unlike the brain aneurysm I had naturally presumed it was.

* * *

My new book is called ASAP (As SLOW As Possible): When to Take the Long Road in a Shortcut World.

What’s it about?

It’s about you and me, living in a hyper-optimized time that keeps mistaking faster for better.

It’s about knowing when speed serves us—and when slowing down is the smarter, stronger move.

It rebels against the false urgency baked into modern work and life. It asks: When is speed useful? And when does the shortcut undermine us… and cost us our judgment, creativity, relationships, work, or lives?

Because when everyone has access to the same shortcuts, the real edge is knowing when not to take them.

It’s got brain science. Storytelling. Real people who’ve chosen the long road when it matters—with astounding results. Six Slowments. One framework. A way to know when a moment deserves more of you.

And (because it’s from me) humor and wit and the occasional em dash. (Because JUSTICE FOR EM DASHES!)

It’s not boring. It’s not moralistic: I don’t want us to do less, opt out, or become the kind of people who ferment things in sheds.

Instead, I’m inviting us to get better at knowing when speed helps—and when it hollows out the very things that make us feel alive.

The new book is from Penguin Random House, a new publisher for me. It’s out February 2027, because that’s how Big Five publishing works. (More on this later, maybe, if you’re interested.)

So that’s what I’ve been up to. And that’s why I’ve been absent from writing to you.

Many of you reached out—in unknowing solidarity with Eye Twitch—asking some version of: R U OK?

Where you been? you asked. Some of you actually resubscribed with a different email address—thinking the problem was them… not me. 🫣

I appreciate you. I’ve missed writing to you. I’ve missed you.

I’m glad to be back.

* * *

The marketer in me wonders whether I should introduce the book by name at all.

Maybe I should keep it vague, I think. Say I’ve been “busy.” Blame “Maycember.” Make some hand-wavy references to “a big project.” Yadda yadda.

Maybe I shouldn’t say anything until I have an actual call to action: a book landing page, a cover, a preorder link, a backstage pass to the writing process, intel on what it’s like to publish with Penguin Random House after doing things so differently in the past.

Maybe I should wait until I could offer you fun book-launch treats or preorder bonuses or a form to invite me to speak at a special discount book-promotion rate. Or, or, or.

Marketing, you know. That’s how it works.

Eye Twitch talked sense into me.

“Listen up,” Eye Twitch said. “You owe your newsletter readers—the people who show up for this letter, week after week—a real and honest explanation.”

“You are being silly,” Eye Twitch continued. “You do not have to Jazz Hands this book with your own people.

“This book is your best work. It’s fun. It’s funny. It’s YOU. It’s a fresh take on a modern problem: We already know how to go fast. What nobody taught us is when not to.”

That Eye Twitch may be only a month old, but dayum… it’s wise for its age.

At some point, I will ask for your help: to join a prelaunch team, to preorder, to share, to tell a friend, to invite me to speak to your group, to send a cold eye mask to soothe Eye Twitch.

At some point, I’ll need your support.

For now, I just wanted to say: I’m back. Thank you for still being here.