The Long Road to Jericho
I recently finished writing my fifth book, The MisreadBible: Joshua. I actually began it about three years ago, not long after publishing The MisreadBible: Gospel, but life got in the way—particularly my mental health, which made it hard to stay on track and see it through.
I originally planned to publish my adaptations of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth as a single volume, but once I’d finished Joshua, I decided it deserved to be released as its own book.
The reason I originally intended to combine the three books was that they are relatively short—Joshua has twenty-four chapters, Judges has twenty-one, and Ruth only has four—and both Joshua and Judges contain a lot of non-narrative material. Joshua has lists of places where modern authors would have maps, and Judges has the repetitive Judges Cycle. Also, Ruth is set during the time of the judges.
2022 was an interesting year for me. The world was still recovering from the pandemic, but things were slowly returning to some semblance of normality. I’d published four books—two of which had been adapted into audiobooks—I had a decent following on the platform formerly known as Twitter, and I was invited by Aron Ra’s producer to take part in a new series called Blasphemers Bible, where atheists read and provide commentary on the Bible. The series began on 29th May 2022.
I’d already made animated videos where I voiced the characters and had done a couple of livestreams on other channels, but this was going to be a weekly commitment. Because I’ve struggled with social anxiety as part of a long-term mental health condition, I used an avatar on the streams rather than appearing on camera. I enjoyed being part of the series, but it was a challenge to manage my anxiety, and by the end of the year, I’d started missing episodes.
During this period, I drafted most of the stories for the book, skipping over sections that were either too dull to adapt directly or that I thought I could handle differently later on. I hadn’t yet polished them or spent much time developing the overarching narrative.
I also created a table that broke the biblical books into distinct stories and tried to piece together a rough chronological order. The Bible isn’t always written chronologically—even within a single story—and sometimes it’s nearly impossible to figure out the order of events.
In 2023, I began working on the audiobook for The MisreadBible: Book of Moses. My friend Joshua Saxon did most of the heavy lifting, as he both narrated and produced the book. With the focus on getting the audiobook finished, I set aside the Joshua-Judges-Ruth project for a while. The audiobook was released on 13th July 2023.
Towards the end of the year, I had a major depressive episode. My social anxiety began tipping further into agoraphobia, and as a result, I wasn’t particularly productive. This carried on into the following year, though I did my best to stay engaged with support.
By the end of 2024, I’d started to pull myself around. I wrote a script for a parody of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which I planned to turn into an animated video. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to produce the animation, so I released it as a poem instead, with the intention of animating it later when I had more time.
I’ve continued working on my mental health this year, and as things improved, I dusted off the drafts of the stories. I went through each one—editing, reworking where needed, and adding new material to create a coherent arc—gradually refining the book until it was finally ready to publish.
As I worked on the ending of Joshua, I became increasingly aware that it felt like a complete story with a natural end point. I found myself thinking ahead to Judges, wondering how I could shift gears—both tonally and mentally—to make it flow smoothly from Joshua. In the end, I concluded that the best approach would be to let Joshua stand on its own and begin Judges as a separate book once Joshua was published.
Of course, publishing a book requires its own gear shift. I began formatting the manuscript to fit the paperback template used by the publishers, reached out to my friend M. R. Oakley to design the cover, and then turned my attention to advertising.
Back when I published my first book, The MisreadBible: Genesis, I researched different ways to promote it. One method I came across—something that had never occurred to me before—was creating book trailers. That became my first foray into animated video. Admittedly, those early adverts were little more than slideshows set to music, but it was a start.
So, I began the process of creating a video to promote the book. I selected a section to adapt, wrote a script, started drawing characters, scenes, and props, and recruited a couple of friends to provide voice work. Huge thanks to Nervardia and Matthew for lending their talent.
There are lots of tedious steps involved—laying out scenes, working out timings, lip-syncing—but I won’t bore you with the details.
In the end, I actually made two adverts instead of one. The second was inspired by a suggestion from Matthew and adapts another section of the book. Both are just waiting on the finished book cover, and then they’ll be ready to go.
Looking ahead, I plan to keep working on my mental health—one can never have too much sanity. Once this book is published, I’ll be moving on to finish Judges (which will include Ruth), and I’m also hoping to find the same kind of community I had on Twitter… before it was taken over by a deranged muppet.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and please stay tuned for further updates about the upcoming book.
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