Over winter break I finished the first draft of a book I'm writing about software (and eventually, hardware I guess). I haven't said a lot about it publicly because I want the book to speak for itself.
That said, it's been really hard not talking about something that I've spent so much time working on, so I decided it was OK to talk about writing the book instead of talking about the book itself.
I think I started working in earnest back in November of 2025 but the ideas for the book have been percolating for years. Last year I started experimenting with the ideas that would eventually find their way into the book, spurred-on by both other books I'd been reading and conversations with others, Primarily Preston, about programming, about computers and the roller-coaster of working in this field (long before I was even "working"). I took the excuse of NaNoWriMo to force myself to write a little of the book virtually every day in November, and while I didn't complete it by the end of the month, I had enough done that it had enough momentum behind it to carry the work through the first draft.
It was hard to decide what exactly would amount to finishing the first draft. On one hand, I considered it to be whatever it was when I reached the last page, since I deliberately refused to do any editing until the first draft was complete. On the other hand, there's a lot of "holes" left behind from the process of avoiding editing, which means the first draft isn't complete in the sense that someone else could read it from start to finish and know everything that will eventually be in there.
So maybe I cheated? I dunno.
The next task is to decide when the first edit should be complete. I deliberately took a break from the project for a couple weeks to clear my head, but I'm considering setting a deadline for that edit at the end of January 2026 (about two/three weeks). This would normally seem too soon, but I might have some time to write near the end of the month so it's not impossible.
Since I don't know how much work the editing will be, it's hard to say if this is realistic. I suppose I could just treat it like a timebox and consider whatever shape it is at the end of the month to be the first edit. I don't know if there's strict rules for this, I haven't really reached the editing stage of book project before, so this is kind of new. I also don't know how many edits I should expect, but my current plan is to do two edit passes and then produce pre-release edition that I can circulate to a small, diverse group of readers who are willing to help me figure out what might remain before committing to a larger release.
Jason J. Gullickson, 2026