[backwardm]

Thanks for taking the time to write this post. It was incredibly motivating to me. A weird side effect is that I now have a scanner in my Amazon shopping cart. Once it arrives, I will start a chain where I doodle something every day, scan it and post it online. I am going to read your book so I can learn more about programming patterns in general—I'm not so interested in programming games yet. Reading the first few chapters, I can tell I'm going to learn a lot.

Also, you can put your own animal drawing on your cover now—and you get to choose which animal!

I'm looking forward to reading new posts about how you need to call your bank every few days to make more room in your account due to all the book sales. Congratulations on getting to done.

[munificent]

> It was incredibly motivating to me. A weird side effect is that I now have a scanner in my Amazon shopping cart. Once it arrives, I will start a chain where I doodle something every day, scan it and post it online.

This is awesome!

I used to draw (hence the hand-drawn illustrations in the book), but it's one of the many hobbies that didn't make the cut after I had kids. As someone who spends way too much time staring at a screen, there's something really therapeutic about actually working with my hands in an analog medium.

[backwardm]

I started out as a graphic designer as well, then gradually moved into programming. I have four kids (evenly spaced between 2 and 11), so I know how you feel about extra time for fun hobbies like drawing. (we are a few weeks away from our first dog too.)

Your post reminded me that I shouldn't be spending all of my time in code working on client projects. Yes, it pays the bills, but I should (need to) do a little drawing each day to keep that part of me alive. It's not as big as writing a book, but it will be fun to see how long I can keep the chain going.

I also agree with your comment about screens vs. paper—I have one of those fancy Wacom drawing tablets, but it doesn't come close to the feel of a nice sharp 4H pencil or Pilot v5 pen on copy paper.

Thanks again for the inspiration.