Ninety-nine percent finished is the new fifty percent done.

Yesterday I shared some design exploration work for the Brilliantcrank brand and my upcoming book. Thank you to everyone who replied with your preferences and dialogue. It's both necessary and nice to have a community that I can interact with and get the type of critique that makes the work stronger.

In response to the thread, Alberto asked, "Out of curiosity, what are you enjoying about the process the most?"

Good question, but before I answer directly, let me tell you what I haven't enjoyed about writing a book.

Years ago I remember talking to Dave Shea about his experience writing his book on CSS Zen Garden. He didn't look back favorably on that project and swore that he'd never write another book again. That stuck with me because I know many authors and he was the only one who drew a figurative line in the sand and declared never to cross it.

After spending so many months writing and rewriting I can see why—the actual work is deceptive. I can't tell you how many times I thought I was nearly finished. I bet my friends and some of my peers can—thank you for your patience and ongoing support—but I've lost count. After six months of effort I'm pretty sure the manuscript is 99% finished, but I've still got a few folks to hear from so… I'm not expecting an anvil to drop, but I'm super hesitant to claim a finale.

The hardest part of this project has been working without the benefit of an editor, but that's not from a lack of trying. The people I know who I trust to do the work are already slammed. I've been through the editorial process with someone who doesn't know me or my voice and tone, and I'll never do that again. I don't mind critique, but I do mind when someone blindly deletes what makes my writing unique simply for the academic sake of bland simplicity.

That's all to say, having to perform both roles—albeit with the robots—has been more work than I anticipated. But I'd like to think that it has helped me sharpen my writing and I hope you've seen evidence of that here in the last couple of months.

Now, let me share what I have enjoyed about this process.

I'm starting to be more comfortable with the idea and have gained more confidence in thinking of myself as a writer. I've posted about this before, but now that I've gone through this work, I'm ready to own that title. So, that's been a nice perk that I wasn't pursuing when I first started the project.

By far, the thing I've enjoyed most is thinking about and learning more about where the future of work is heading. I started writing the book well before the CEO of Shopify declared that teams had to exhaust AI-based options before hiring another human.

Several similar Minimum Viable Human initiatives have been documented in the news since. These events immediately validated what I've studied and written about, which is an incredible feeling—albeit dark. That said, I truly believe the book is foundational to new ways of working and can help a lot of people if they put my curriculum (not prompts) to use.

The last part I've enjoyed is the design. It's been a long time since I've designed for print, which will likely be evident when I put out the first version. I've had fun tinkering (by which I really mean shouting merchant marine grade profanity at the screen) with the Kindle Create app.

And, as of this week, I'm working on a new brand for Brilliantcrank which includes the look and feel of the books. I have one or two more that I've already started. The design work is a nice distraction from the word work, and it's given me the feeling of being on the home stretch of finally publishing this book.

Thanks for the prompt, Alberto. Let me know if you have more questions.