What I would hand someone on day one of running a studio
Six years, four people, and a short list of things that would have saved me most of the first two years. None of it is about the work.
Craft
How things get made, unmade, and made again. Process notes from people who finish.
Rereading is not nostalgia
I reread four books most years. Each time the book is the same and the reading is not, which is the entire argument for doing it.
What shipped instead
We planned eleven features and shipped six. Writing down which five died, and why, turned out to be the most useful document of the year.
The margin is not empty space
Readers never mention the margins. They mention feeling tired, or not. After eleven years of setting books, I think those are the same sentence.
The second draft is where the argument shows up
The first draft finds out what I think. The second finds out whether it holds.
The notebook that survived three rewrites
Every system I have abandoned left one habit behind.
Letters I never sent to my younger studio
Six years of invoices, three bad contracts and one friendship that survived. What I would tell the studio I ran at twenty-six.
Start reading Craft the morning it publishes
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