There comes a time in every book where the book is almost finished and somehow or other progress seems to halt. Yesterday emails flew back and forth between Tessa, who is the editor and publisher, James and myself concerning the text and small changes to words. Some I felt passionately about, like the boat being called a 'paper boat' rather than a 'little boat'. Such small things, but they mean a great deal sometimes. Now the text is almost fixed.
And still I cannot sit down in my studio and paint. Is it that I don't want to let go? I am keen to move on to the next book which is one I wrote myself, to spend time tidying my house and my website, and to write a new text, but today I have walked dogs, washed up and made stock from pheasant carcasses ( I seem to me moving towards the slow food movement here, but the house smell glorious and the birds, that in life were so beautiful on the table were so tasty). I have learned how to pluck and draw pheasants and now want to draw and paint them. And I have let time slip through my fingers and days go by.
So, off to the studio and hoping to work late tonight.
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4 comments:
Could it be that you're looking forward to finishing this one and starting the new one so much that you want to hold on to this moment and relish it? That's how I feel when I come close to beginning something I've been looking forward to!;)
Your work is beautiful and I hope you share your new book with us too!x
New book will be back over on my website I think, but should all be there, at
http://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/now.htm
My grandfather had a saying: "Getting ready to commence." I think he meant that some of us can get very wrapped up in the process of beginnings--and endings, too. A project that is still in the mind dances and glows and leads us on. There comes the point midway where it can be tedious. When we finish and hope that we've done it as well as possible, there is a sense of being restless and drained. I think there has to be a time of something different--be it house cleaning, simple repetative chores or something quite out of the ordinary before we can settle to work again.
I am always sad at the end of a project, like when seeing friends off at the station, so I have a hard time finishing. I get to that 3/4s-7/8s point and falter, knowing the sad letting-go part is coming, and then dither and flutter to put it off until I'm so impatient with myself, and the deadline is so frighteningly large and close and coming so fast, that all else disappears into the Getting Done part. Then I'm too tired (and perversely triumphant) to be sad.
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