Written

Yesterday, at 3:30(ish) am, I sent in the final (FINAL [FINAL!!!]) illustrator file for the map to accompany my book. I was unsatisfied with the previous iteration (elevations weren’t properly fleshed out, some edges were rough, and it felt unfinished). Over the last 10 days, I have literally put in…. probably over 60 hours of work (yes you read that correctly, no I did not take time off work, tho I did have monday off) to polish it – half of the effort was vectorizing the map, and the other half was adding contour lines after determining the final “highest elevation” (1.9km) and what I wanted each contour line gap to represent (25m increments).

The book is in its final editing (punctuation, grammar, text formatting, etc) and the google doc for it is 109 pages long. The first draft was about 38 pages. I would say roughly 100 of those pages are my own writing, with some spot edits / contributions by Wythe (Stillfleet creator) and our co-editors, the other ~10 pages were written by Wythe and a co-editor. (11pt font, if you’re curious)

Our layout designer has the book roughly half-laid out and I’ve seen the early proofs; they’re gorgeous. The team’s artist has finished most of the artwork and when I saw the review proofs I nearly cried – I had given him some VERY basic thumbnail sketches (((VERY. BASIC.))) and what he managed to create captured the vibe perfectly. I cannot begin to describe how amazing it is to see your ideas illustrated by someone else.

I feel like I just finished a dissertation. Crossing the deadline–surviving it–feels like a monumental accomplishment and the last 10 days were by far the most grueling. I promised myself that for the rest of the weekend, and maybe a couple days beyond, I’m doing no required work, going to sleep early(er), and prioritizing relaxation; my poor brain needs a break, and my body needs hella rest.

(PS: I streamed a few nights of edits, here’s on of the saved VODs this one was 4h 50m long. The longest editing session was just over 8 hours and ended at 5am.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0rCpYyajZk