When I work on a new book, the pace starts off slow, thoughtful. As the work develops a kind of internal momentum, a life different from my own, work speeds up. It may be still probing tangents, searching for new possible directions, but over time it acquires its basic theme and unique slant. With that, its pace speeds up.

It may take months or years to get to that point – I always have a hundred unfinished paintings, sketches, half-formed stories, half-completed books laying around. Many I never get back to, but the ones that keep bubbling up from down deep, that keep tugging at my pant leg, get attention. The ones that persist get more and more focus, and hard work.

As a book gets three quarters finished, I become obsessed by it. I can’t sleep. I work day and night. I become increasingly protective of my time and particularly of my creative imagination. I have to make a real effort not to become a pain in the ass to those I care about. I always seem to get the feeling, justified or not, that if I don’t start pouring everything I have into the project, it’s not ever going to get done. By that point, three-quarters or more of the way through, I need to fight off the desire to temporarily set aside the work and work on a new project. I want to get this project done so I can get on to the next.

I know a number of artists who routinely abandon projects close to completion – they are distracted by the fun and excitement of a new idea. This is not good if one is going to complete work. Some of it I’m sure is the unconscious (or conscious) concern that the work is inadequate, maybe even that they, themselves are inadequate. If you never complete a work that you poured your heart and soul into, you can’t fail. You thus protect your creative work (and your heart and soul) from rejection and ridicule. Are you a mouse or a man (or a woman)?

Lurking underneath all of this is an important principle with contradictory considerations. A creative life, a creative work, requires a thoughtful rhythm. Said another way, for your creative work to develop its own life, its own internal power with which it can make its own way in the world, it has to grow out of a thoughtful process. But if you work too slow, too thoughtfully, the work might never get completed. Or take years when it should take months. Too fast and it will lack power, depth, perceptiveness. It will lack the excitement of spontaneity. It will lack an internal energy.

In my journal, I constantly review the rhythm of my life and creative work. Am I working too hard, too fast? Often the answer to that, after first meditating on the question, is yes. Am I going in too many directions? Almost always the answer to that one is yes.

When the answers to either or both are yes, I then meditate on two questions, “Do I need to take more time to nurture the quiet inside? What do I need to change to work from that place right on the boundary between words, images and vague notions?”

Having just finished, and sent off to the printer yesterday, my third book this year I am, once again, going through this process of wondering about the rhythm of my life.

Every day, no matter how behind we get, needs some quiet time. Creative work needs to evolve out of a still point.

Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance.
- T.S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton”

Most really good writers and artists put in three or four focused hours of hard work a day. Beyond that creative work is likely to be adversely affected by mental fatigue. After working, they relax, go for a walk in the woods or sleep. Or, somedays, they deal with tasks that are not intellectually demanding. Of course, there are exceptions. Picasso worked about nine hours out of the average 24, broken into two four- or five-hour sessions. He completed tens of thousands of works of art in his life, many that were shallow and vapid, some that changed art forever.

Whatever the optimum creative and life rhythm for you, it won’t emerge without careful thought. It doesn’t just happen by going with the flow of the culture around us. That moves too fast.

Wisdom is not struggle. Wisdom does not overwork.

More readings here.

www.herondance.org/rhythm-life

If we cannot wait,
we cannot know the
     right time to move.

If we cannot be still,
our actions will have
     gathered no power.
- Friends of Silence

. . .

The notes above, condensed for the Creativity as a Way of Life Substack:

The rhythm of our lives and work requires constant thought and review. Cut out the nonessential — focus on what only you can do, on what makes you unique. Lots of things would be worth doing if time was infinite.

What is essential is usually related to what makes you and your work unique. If others have already done it, it’s not essential. If it is you copying the work of others, or their style, it is not essential. If it is you trying to show others that you’ve mastered a skill — for instance the skill of painting realistically, or even the skill of loose, relaxed watercolor — it’s not essential. It’s essential if it comes from your heart and soul.

Creative work especially requires downtime, meditation, an openness to messages from the unknown, thought before action.

The rhythm of our lives and work requires constant thought and review.

. . .

 The plan, close to implementation, is to publish notes such as those above in an art journal format, accompanied by a video of me painting, and a soundtrack so that the post can be listened to rather than read for those who want to access the content that way. Free subscribers would get a summary once a week of the key ideas. For instance, for this post, that summary might be:

The rhythm of our lives and work requires constant thought and review. Cut out the nonessential — focus on what only you can do, on what makes you unique. Lots of things would be worth doing if time was infinite.

That would be accompanied by a link to the YouTube video that would include me discussing these thoughts while painting.

. . .

The thoughts above emerged out of journaling, and then writing for publication, as explored below. In the interests of brevity, I’m increasingly leaning toward not publishing these further thoughts — the thoughts behind the thoughts so to speak — in order to focus on creating beautiful, succinct art journals that summarize my key thoughts. But, because it’s been a while, I thought I might offer the “thoughts behind the thoughts” content above today.