Finding an Endpoint on a Creative Project

Finishing a Revision

I’ve been single-tasking to finish the revision of a book-length manuscript. Aside aside from working on Reviving Artemis: Becoming a Huntress at Sixty, I’ve done little beyond weeding my vegetable garden, which really isn’t very different from writing. And both this draft of the book and this iteration of the vegetable garden are my best ever.

Finding an Endpoint

But it’s hard to put an end point on a creative process. My daughter Ruth Shafer, a fiber artist, has written brilliantly about what happens when a piece of art is “finished” in this newsletter, describing the ordeal of shipping her award-winning sculpture SlipCover from Vermont to California, where it will be on view at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.

I highly recommend reading Ruth’s newsletter and watching her Instagram videos for both entertainment and inspiration.

Meanwhile, I’m heading back to the word shop to “finish” my book.

3 Comments

Amelia Silver on August 23, 2023 at 1:51 pm

Wonderful! I love that you say writing and weeding are just about the same! I often think that gardening and writing poetry are the same, and one activity often leads to the other.
On another note, I recently suggested you as a potential board member for ACLU-VT. Any interest? I have been on the board for a couple of years and have found it genuinely stimulating, educational and gratifying. A very fine, smart and diverse group has been assembled by Duff Lyall, the ED. Anyway, if you are interested, let me know!
Hope you are well xoxo
Amelia Silver

Deborah Lee Luskin on August 24, 2023 at 12:59 pm

Hi Amelia, Thanks for reading—and commenting—on my posts, which have been few and far between lately. And I’m glad at least one reader gets the connection between writing and weeding. Weeding is both so concrete and metaphorical, which is extremely gratifying, especially when it spawns and image, sentence or the architectural solution to a narrative problem.
Email regarding ACLU follows separately. xxD.

Jeanette Perry on August 24, 2023 at 10:12 pm

When it comes a time in life when you are told to stop that tip of thing , after all your life yo u did , it
or some tip of thing like it hurts in your thinking real bad. And will get on to you I have found out this last years.

And thanks do have Your self a good fall

Amelia Silver on August 23, 2023 at 1:51 pm

Wonderful! I love that you say writing and weeding are just about the same! I often think that gardening and writing poetry are the same, and one activity often leads to the other.
On another note, I recently suggested you as a potential board member for ACLU-VT. Any interest? I have been on the board for a couple of years and have found it genuinely stimulating, educational and gratifying. A very fine, smart and diverse group has been assembled by Duff Lyall, the ED. Anyway, if you are interested, let me know!
Hope you are well xoxo
Amelia Silver
- Deborah Lee Luskin on August 24, 2023 at 12:59 pm
  
  Hi Amelia, Thanks for reading—and commenting—on my posts, which have been few and far between lately. And I’m glad at least one reader gets the connection between writing and weeding. Weeding is both so concrete and metaphorical, which is extremely gratifying, especially when it spawns and image, sentence or the architectural solution to a narrative problem.
  Email regarding ACLU follows separately. xxD.
Jeanette Perry on August 24, 2023 at 10:12 pm

When it comes a time in life when you are told to stop that tip of thing , after all your life yo u did , it
or some tip of thing like it hurts in your thinking real bad. And will get on to you I have found out this last years.

And thanks do have Your self a good fall