Completing our latest book is proving somewhat difficult. It seems I have been stuck on Chapter Seven for several weeks. It is not so much a block of ideas merely a lack of time. When I do have time, there are so many things which call out for attention, waving the flag of ‘AHEM’ before my eyes; the book is pressed further back in the home of my mind, gradually moving from the foyer, through the hall, past the kitchen and down into the basement.
I find writing highly enjoyable; indeed, I must write. Poetry is my favored outlet but fiction is not so far behind. Eventually, the things to do are finished: the kitchen is replete with ‘clean’, dinner is slow-cooking, the laundry is churning, the children are napping and I gravitate over to the laptop like a bee drawn to a garden of fragrant, lush roses. It feels almost sublime to sit down a moment and exercise my brain, now that my back and legs are tired and so in an industrious fashion. I don’t know why, but television holds little appeal in comparison; besides the nightly newscast and the occasional documentary we dabble only seldom in the realm of public/paid media broadcasting. The news is better on the web anyway, without those annoying commercials. So, in lieu of veging out in front of the tube there is a flurry of writing in our living room at least a few nights each week.
As the book chapters are completed I know there will be a mental push, so to speak, to get it finished. The activity may even become mechanical instead of enjoyable, especially during the editing stage, but it cannot be helped. Work is as much part of the art as the pleasant, artistic, creative side. Once the piece is finished, however, I know the result will be well worth the effort. The folks that buy our books seem to agree.
Thus, one can assume that completing a task, whether a book, painting, day, laborious project or IT report… it involves scientific method in parts, labor, tears, tension headaches and joy, most of all the realization that just finishing the task, itself, has an art to it.
(Not to mention it feels unduly good.)
