Friday, May 31, 2013

First draft successfully downloaded from brain to cursor

The corrections keep coming.
It took years, and then it took hours as I stayed up until 1 every night last week to finish my first whack at my Chinese bookbinding book. After deciding on and lining up the 60,000-plus words, I was relieved and excited that the story finally existed in a single physical form instead of a mishmash of vivid memories, journals, letters, voluminous images, and handouts I designed for my workshops. I also maintain a clipping file and short shelf of books mentioning Chinese bookbinding, although there isn't much. Perhaps my book can help fix this dearth of literature in English about the excellent Chinese invention of books! 

A first draft, however much I want to celebrate it—maybe with a big dinner at Taste of Sichuan out in Beaverton?—is just that, a starting point. Now other work begins, such as filling in technical details, making yet more corrections, sorting out the art. Somewhere along the way, too, I must decide how to publish it.