The e-books are ready! Kindle versions and the universal epub file type as well. Remember that Shakespeare's Complete Paragon is the combination of the 42 illustrations found in the other two books.

I've just submitted the last of the files for review before being officially published. The e-book versions are available now, and the print versions should be ready by February, but as far as I can tell, I can get out from behind this computer and, you know, sleep... or eat... or go for a walk. It's been a while.

Just finished designing the back cover of Shakespeare's Zoo, and I think I love it. It's going to be hard to top for Shakespeare's Menagerie. Also, what do I put for the text on the back of the second book? The same thing? Maybe a reference to the fact that it's the second in a series? I don't know. This wasn't in the original plan.

I got on a roll, and decided I wanted to be done today. So I'm done. Today. Not with the whole thing; I've got a lot of formatting and detail work ahead of me, but all of the art is done. All of it. Forty-two animals, painstakingly rendered. I'm exhausted. This is the very last one:

And yet, so many more to do before I'm finally done...

Fourteen pages done. Fourteen! But my favorite so far has to be the tiger, finished today. I can't stop looking at it. It was ridiculously complicated to execute, but the hard work paid off, for sure.

Fourth page done; it might be my favorite so far. Also, this website is coming along nicely. I finished the "About the Book" description and I think it works quite nicely. Also working on "About the Author, " but that is always much harder. What do I say about myself that people will actually want to know?

I'm working on assembling the quotations as a page on this site, mostly to keep track of them myself, but I haven't decided if I want to make it public yet. Also, I haven't decided if I want to make some of the pages available as a sneak peek into the final product. Stay tuned, I guess?

Alright, I don't know if I can really say "humming right along" when I've only just now finished a second page. But two pages are 100% more pages than one page. I have about 50 left to go, and each one takes me a couple of hours, but I'm still enjoying myself.

I think I'll move on to page number three...

Well, it won't be the first page in the book. At least I don't think so, but it is the first page I have finished. The theme may become apparent later.

It was gonna be brilliant (maybe).

It was going to utilize the within-book linking capabilities of e-books. And modern technology-driven themes. And conflict, oh the conflict.

But, alas, fizzle-sputter-die.

Here's the problem: I am not a writer. At least not yet. I know what you're going to say; I've heard it before. But I don't even have aspirations of becoming a writer. Mostly I just like books. I like reading words that sing. And I like art—all kinds of art—art that makes me want to look at it longer and closer. And beautiful layouts; just the right spacing between the everything. And good editing: everything spelled correctly and every bit of punctuation either accurate or purposeful. And well-curated, well-illustrated information.

I like aesthetically exquisite objects.

I'm going to make an aesthetically exquisite object, or at least I'm going to try. Here I go.