Blogging the book: diagrams and photos

Over the last week, I've been putting in some long hours on writing my forthcoming marquetry book for Lost Art Press.

And I do mean long hours — I worked periodically throughout the day on Friday and ramped things up in the evening. I didn’t end up closing the laptop until around 4 AM.

I’m not complaining — the entire process has been markedly different from writing the last book, and in a good way. Yesterday my friend Matt Parkes and my “friend” Alex Marshall stopped by to do nothing in particular (fantastic). I ended up reading a passage from the book to Parkes, who remarked that it sounded very much in my voice and conversational.

That was great to hear because that’s how it felt while writing it. When doing the last book, I was much more concerned with trying to follow the perceived formula laid out by my publisher. They came to me specifically asking for a book on boxes, so I wanted to deliver on that and not rock the boat too much. The fact that I was the one writing it was kind of irrelevant to the content.

This one is a little different. The parameters for the book are more or less whatever I want them to be. There are of course expectations, but I have much more control. I explicitly asked Megan and Chris if I should tone down the “Albert” in the book and they told me to absolutely not do that.

Because of that, I’m loosening up in the writing process and having fun. I also suspect the content is better.

In addition to writing the text, I’m also responsible for all diagrams, illustrations, and photos in the book. Folks tend to be kind of surprised at that, but I honestly prefer it that way. It allows me to work entirely on my own schedule. I may end up hiring out for some of these things, but I’m at least starting from the position that I’ll be handling them.

Last night I finished up the first “true” chapter of the book — “Marquetry in Theory.” In it, I present the different types of marquetry and go into a fairly lengthy discussion of the geometry involved in double-bevel. This necessitated creating a number of diagrams to illustrate my points, and I think it would be helpful to share here.

So for paid subscribers, here’s a brief working excerpt from the book going over what determines the optimal cutting angle along with some diagrams to show what happens when those variables change. I think (and hope!) it will be helpful for folks to quickly grasp the theory behind double-bevel.