Johns Hopkins University

Just outlining the coastlines took a month. On the solid, 22-inch by 30-inch sheet of white paper I was working on, I couldn’t just press the “undo” button if my highlighter happened to slip. I had spent two months creating a rough draft, and an additional month transferring that onto the final copy with a pencil. I then outlined that with a pen, which I was now going over with a highlighter. Messing up at this point meant losing four months of hard work. The stakes were high, but I was enjoying the process. I was already thinking about other details I could expand upon next. A steampunk…