Guess what I did today? I finished* my book!!

The first words of the book, which I typed into my computer back in August 2024, were "For me, it all started with the dumpster/cube."   

Today, just before noon, I typed, "... in a way that feels like a perfect way to conclude this book, it's a cube that comes full circle."

One idea for what the cover might look like, 
maybe.

With that, I am DONE!!   

Okay, by that, I mean I'm done with the first draft.  I'm not done with the book itself by a long shot; there are going to be months and months of revisions ahead of me.  (Even that last sentence: two "ways" too close together--ugh!).  I have to redo, or even create, a bunch of figures.  I have to find a publisher who actually wants to publish it.  I have to pull together an accompanying website that includes color versions of some the images and video versions of others, and I have to figure out the best way to QR-code link to them in the book.  There is a LOT of work left to do.

Revising is a whole different thing than composing, and that's what I get to do next.  But the overall structure, the first draft, it's done.  Done-dy done, done, done! 

When I was planning this year out in my head, before I set foot in Panama, I figured I'd write a book that would be eight chapters long, and that meant I could write a chapter a month with a bit of time left over.  But Chapter 4 exploded, both in terms of writing time and in overall length, and it became two chapters.  Then my February was swallowed up by two different week-long workshops I gave and by visits from my family.  I decided these activities were great tradeoffs worth sacrificing writing time, and resigned myself to finishing the book after I returned to Pennsylvania.

But for reasons I don't understand, Chapter 8 (stereoscopy) seemed to flow out of me into ink or electrons, and the Chapter 9 (making movies) was like the cat meowing at the door, a door which I then had to open.  And so I wrote and I wrote and then, BOOM.  I figured out how it was all going to end, circling back to where it began, and I'm done.

9 months of writing.
9 chapters.
219 pages.
186 figures.
378 megabytes.

and
1 complete draft.

Whoop!!

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