Afterward
Advice I should have heeded early on . . .
“Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious
failure than you ever will from something you never finished.”—Neil Gaiman
“If your book is taking longer than you’d like to write, stop researching the book
and focus on writing it.” Why You Must Finish Writing What You Started (And
How to Do It).—How to Finish Writing What You Started—Disconnect from the
internet while you write https://becomeawritertoday.com/finish-writing/
“Books aren’t written—they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the
hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.”—
Michael Crichton
I remember hearing or reading once that you can either (a) attempt a totally up-todate book, which will never be finished, or (b) resign yourself to a book that
illustrates basic principles and has a chance for completion. Writing this book has
convinced me of the truth of item (a). When I started, there were no hard X-ray
FELS, no MBA lattices, no refractive X-ray optics, no TES detectors, and barely any
synchrotron nuclear spectroscopy. I have finally chosen to go with option (b), with
the solace that perhaps there can be a second edition. Stay tuned . . .
“The same iron rigor needed to begin the book is required to end it.”—Gabriel
Garcia Marquez
The End
October 2020, Los Altos, CA
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
S. P. Cramer, X-Ray Spectroscopy with Synchrotron Radiation, Biological and Medical
Physics, Biomedical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28551-7
311
Advice I should have heeded early on . . .
“Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious
failure than you ever will from something you never finished.”—Neil Gaiman
“If your book is taking longer than you’d like to write, stop researching the book
and focus on writing it.” Why You Must Finish Writing What You Started (And
How to Do It).—How to Finish Writing What You Started—Disconnect from the
internet while you write https://becomeawritertoday.com/finish-writing/
“Books aren’t written—they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the
hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.”—
Michael Crichton
I remember hearing or reading once that you can either (a) attempt a totally up-todate book, which will never be finished, or (b) resign yourself to a book that
illustrates basic principles and has a chance for completion. Writing this book has
convinced me of the truth of item (a). When I started, there were no hard X-ray
FELS, no MBA lattices, no refractive X-ray optics, no TES detectors, and barely any
synchrotron nuclear spectroscopy. I have finally chosen to go with option (b), with
the solace that perhaps there can be a second edition. Stay tuned . . .
“The same iron rigor needed to begin the book is required to end it.”—Gabriel
Garcia Marquez
The End
October 2020, Los Altos, CA
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
S. P. Cramer, X-Ray Spectroscopy with Synchrotron Radiation, Biological and Medical
Physics, Biomedical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28551-7
311