Why Are You Really Procrastinating?

I'm in the mid­dle of a writ­ing project with a tight dead­line, but despite the loom­ing due date, I've been strug­gling to work on it. I keep open­ing up the doc­u­ment, read­ing a few lines, and then shoot­ing off to do Facebook for fif­teen min­utes. I feel ashamed with myself.

Where's my dis­ci­pline? Why can't I stop pro­cras­ti­nat­ing and get my work done?

I real­ized yes­ter­day that I am afraid of my project. I'm afraid of how ter­ri­ble it is, how much work it requires, how long it will take to finish.

I'm afraid of how messy it is.

Ironically, the book is about being okay with the mess in your cre­ative life.

Reveling in the Mess

Photo by Chris Willis

Reveling in the Slow and Messy

Betsy Cañas Gorman says this:

"You can’t check off the slow and messy. You deny your­self and your process if you deny slow and messy."

In my per­fec­tion­ism, I've been try­ing to con­trol my process so that the slow, messi­ness of it all stays hid­den and forgotten.

Instead, I would like to embrace messy. I would like to revel in it like a child rev­els in the touch of fin­ger paint, like a sculp­tor rev­els in a half-finished gar­goyle, like a body builder rev­els in soreness.

It takes a cer­tain amount of trust to expe­ri­ence this kind of rev­elry when fac­ing the mess in your writ­ing projects. It's not really trust that your project will turn out well, because some­times it won't. It's not trust that you have the skills and knowl­edge required to achieve your goals, because you prob­a­bly don't.

No, you have to trust that immers­ing your­self in the mess of your project is good, that the process is good, even if the result isn't.

Discipline Is Not Your Problem

Do you have faith in your process? Or are you an inse­cure wreck until the project is fin­ished and look­ing pretty?

Even more, do you love your process? Do you revel in it?

Until you do, you will pro­cras­ti­nate, and no amount of dis­ci­pline will get you to move forward.

Today, enjoy the mess, enjoy the slow­ness, enjoy your process. Because even­tu­ally you will want to say, as most great writ­ers have, that even if you never achieve fame, the writ­ing itself would be enough.

PRACTICE

Spend some time either free writ­ing or work­ing on your work in progress.

As you write, med­i­tate on the expe­ri­ence: your fin­gers tap­ping the keys, your eyes scan­ning over the words, the deep breath in your lungs. See if you can't enjoy it.

Write for fif­teen min­utes. When you're fin­ished post your prac­tice in the com­ments, along with a lit­tle blurb about whether you enjoyed it or not.

About the Author

Joe Bunting

Joe is a ghostwriter, editor, and an aspiring fiction author. He writes and edits books that change lives. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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  • Candance

    Wow. You wrote this for me. I NEEDED to read this today, just as I NEED to stop typ­ing this com­ment and start work­ing on my big project.

  • http://www.lisabuiecollard.com/ Lisa Buie-Collard

    Rough draft on my WIP, but yes, I liked doing it. I'd been stew­ing on this scene for TWO days!! Ridiculous I know. But I read your post and it, like with the oth­ers com­ment­ing here it seems, hit a cord. Thank you for get­ting me off to a good start!

    Are you fin­ished?” Celia’s abduc­tor nod­ded at the untouched steam­ing tea on the table. She shook her head, then picked it up and sipped it. He took up her empty sand­wich wrap­pings and threw them away.
    “You are a neat freak,” she com­mented.
    “Get some rest. We’ll leave right after dark.”
    “Are we going to be up all night like last night?”
    He hes­i­tated. “Yes.” Then he lay down on the couch, crossed his arms and closed his eyes.
    Celia sighed, fin­ished her tea and threw away her empty cup. She went into the bed­room and lay on the bed, and even though she was pos­i­tive he wouldn’t come in till it was time to leave, she left the light on.
    A strong sense of being watched woke her. She sat up fast and found him stand­ing just inside the door­way. “Is it time?” she asked as she swung her feet to the floor and started to rise.
    “No.” He didn’t move. He didn’t say any­thing more, but his face radi­ated cold again, dark and glacial, like a snow­storm. He stayed there star­ing at her so long goose bumps broke out all over her body, a pre­mo­ni­tion, a warn­ing. She stood and faced him. What else could she do? She had no defense, noth­ing to fight him off with if he’d changed his mind about what he would do to, or with, her. All she had were her gut-linked wits.
    “Have you changed your mind?”
    He frowned and glared at her. “About what?”
    “You know. About me. Let me go. Tie me up and leave me some­where I won’t be found until after you’re safe. I can stall them even, if you want.”
    His face showed no emo­tion, no inkling that he’d heard one word she’d said. “Please. I don’t want to die.” She didn’t dare look away or bow her head as she wanted to. She prayed the lock on their gaze would keep him from rash behav­ior, willed him to accept her com­pro­mise. For now she under­stood while he’d been out he had reeval­u­ated her drain on his safety, what a drag she was on his abil­ity to move in stealth mode. “What hap­pened out there to change your mind?”
    That got a reac­tion. Just a flicker across his fore­head, but she’d seen the flash of it before he could hide it. “Please, I don’t want to die,” she whis­pered. Her throat closed in on famil­iar fear and slid her right into that other hell. “Please, oh please let me go.”

  • LKWatts

    If you want to use your time effec­tively, first you must realise that what you pro­duce ini­tially is unlikely to be perfect.

    I don't know who said this or if I've just made the whole thing up, but I think it's a pretty good phrase to keep in mind.

  • Themagicviolinist

    Thanks for the feed­back every­body! :D All of your writ­ing is really good. I'll take every­thing you said into account to make my story better.

  • Pingback: Creativity Tweets of the Week – 02/24/12 « The Artist's Road

  • http://www.clairesteaparty.com/ Claire Vorster

    A few thoughts from your life coach

    Hey Joe,

    Good and hon­est post. It is always worth writ­ing an obsta­cle down just as you have done, firstly because by com­mit­ting our puz­zles to paper we are plac­ing them at arm’s length, sec­ondly because as we write, we allow our beloved brains time to fig­ure out how to solve them.

    When we are hon­est about our obsta­cles or fears, rather than avoid­ing or sedat­ing them, we take the first step towards defeat­ing them. And in this spirit of hon­esty, let me be can­did with you. I am writ­ing about fear. I just wrote a post with a smat­ter­ing of irony– 3 Minutes To A Better Life – all about what to do when fear bites. At the same time, I am work­ing on fears related to the cur­rent obsta­cles in my life.

    But here is ancient wis­dom on the subject,

    To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; nei­ther let there be in thee any attach­ment to inac­tion” from the Bhagavad Gita

    When we stop focus­ing on the fruits of action and free our minds from asking,

    Is what I am doing any good?”
    “Am I any good?”

    Then we free our­selves to con­cen­trate on the task at hand. In short, we just do it. What a relief.

    For the record, you are any good. From read­ing your blog, I can tell this much about you:

    You are a tal­ented writer.
    You aim to please, but not at the expense of what you hold dear.
    You have clearly defined goals and you are work­ing dili­gently to achieve them.
    You like to help other peo­ple reach their goals.
    You know when to stop.

    That’s all. We are all in it together, what­ever ‘it’ may be! Have a good writ­ing day Joe.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      This was very touch­ing and encour­ag­ing, Claire. Thank you so much.

      • Claire Vorster

        Keep on keep­ing on :)

    • Yvette Carol

      Hear hear! This advice helps all of us Claire. Why don't you stop in more often??
      :-)

  • http://www.atlumschema.com Andy Mort

    You're so right. It's such a hard thing to push through. I think about it a lot — the fact that art is all about process, with the things that we cre­ate as mere posts that mark the jour­ney. If we don't enjoy the strug­gle of the process (trav­el­ling can often be frus­trat­ing and it painful on the back­side — but it's when you see the most beau­ti­ful things and the rev­e­la­tion of what is to come), then we aren't being truth­ful to our­selves about what it is we are doing/what we are doing it for.

    I wrote a post about the momen­tum that takes us from project to project and the way that each one is a marker in the big­ger cre­ative pic­ture. Momentum can take us uphill if we com­pli­ment it by push­ing our­selves and one another. http://atlumschema.com/atlumschema/where-is-the-momentum-taking-you/

  • http://jblearnstowrite.tumblr.com/ JB Lacaden

    As promised ear­lier, here's my prac­tice for today.

    I had so much fun writ­ing about Baavla that I decided to expand his story. Read and enjoy!

    *******

    How do you do it?” Layka asked.

    Baavla looked at the lit­tle girl with tired eyes. He smiled—making the wrin­kles on his face grow much deeper. “Magic,” he sim­ply said.

    Layka held her gaze on the face of the old snake charmer. “You lie,” she sud­denly said, “magic isn’t real.”

    Stupid girl,” Baavla said. The old man stretched his hands out. “How can you say magic is not real when it is all around you?”

    Layka looked around her and then back to the snake charmer. “Fine. If you don’t want to share your secret then I guess I’ll just have to fig­ure it out myself,” the girl said, her face deter­mined, “I’m good at fig­ur­ing things out you know. You just wait.”

    Stupid girl,” Baavla repeated. “Go pick up Asi. The peo­ple are leav­ing and so should we.”

    The Southern mar­ket­place was almost empty of peo­ple. The only ones left were the mer­chants who were clos­ing down their stalls. Layka bent down and grabbed hold of the wicker bas­ket. She then picked it up and embraced it to her chest. Snake charmer and lit­tle girl both made their way across the dusty street of Agara.

    Will you teach me later how to play the flute?” Layka asked as she tried to keep up with the old man.

    Baavla remained silent. In his right hand, he held tight on his white col­ored flute. The two of them turned around a cor­ner and into a nar­row alleyway.

    Hey old man,” Layka said. “Will you teach me or not?”

    You’re not ready yet,” Baavla answered.

    You don’t know that,” Layka stub­bornly answered back. She stopped walk­ing for a bit and adjusted her hold on the huge basket.

    Baavla stopped. He turned around and looked at her. “Your lit­tle body and lit­tle mind is not yet ready to give orders to Asi,” he said. “Now hurry up. The sun is almost asleep and dark­ness will come.” Baavla then resumed his walk.

    Layka stuck out her pink tongue at the back of the Baavla. She then walked in a hur­ried pace to catch up with her new mas­ter. She felt Asi stir­ring inside the bas­ket with each hur­ried step that she took. The alley­ways of Agara were silent—as if they too were prepar­ing for the night. The only sound came from the brisk walk of the young Layka—her bare­foot hit­ting the ground. Layka didn’t notice a small sharp rock. She acci­den­tally stepped on it and tripped. The wicker bas­ket was tossed in the air.
    Baavla quickly turned around upon hear­ing the bas­ket hit the ground. He saw Asi slither out of her cage. A few feet away from the bas­ket, Layka was sit­ting, hold­ing her wounded foot. “Stupid girl,” Baavla hissed.

    The snake raised its body and looked at Baavla, then at Layka. Asi then slith­ered on the ground towards the help­less lit­tle girl. With mouth opened, and body recoiled to attack, a strange sound started to linger in the air. The snake stopped in its tracks.

    Layka looked at the snake charmer—lips blow­ing life to the flute and fin­gers nim­bly mov­ing from hole to hole. She knew her life had just been saved.

    • Yvettecarol

      JB, you're onto some­thing here! If you're drawn to a sub­ject there must be a rea­son and you have the story flow­ing so well, I'd say just keep going. You never know, you may have a win­ning short story here or even a book. It's great!

    • MarianneVest

      JB — That was good. The lit­tle girl, Layka, was just irri­tat­ing enough for me to feel a sym­pa­thetic to Baavla, and he moved from being an old grouch to a hero. I enjoyed that very much. Thank you.

  • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

    These are per­son­nel files,” Morgan said, as she rifled through them. “Except this last one.”

    She handed the manila folder to Shane. Inside were memos and news­pa­per clip­pings, and copies from inter­net news sources. He skimmed the head­lines. Nothing looked famil­iar to him, noth­ing that she had men­tioned and he knew about. But then, he didn’t even know why Darla had them, or why he had taken them with him.

    I should have brought the phone rather than these,” he said, lay­ing the folder down on the table beside his empty plate.

    I don’t know,” Morgan said, still read­ing over the con­tents of one of the fold­ers. “Do you know why she would have per­sonal files on the firm’s employ­ees?” Shane shook his head.

    We haven’t talked much over the last few weeks,” Shane said. He cleared his throat. Morgan watched him above the file she held open.

    I can imag­ine.” She set the files down, stack­ing them so that the tabs were arranged in order. He had for­got­ten that about her. “Look, Shane. Why don’t you go lay down on the couch and sleep for a while. I’ve got a cou­ple of errands to run and I need to think about this.” He must have looked incred­u­lous, because she added, “No one lives here but me, and that dumb dog. I’ll leave him outside.”

    She left him in the kitchen while she went to find a blan­ket and pil­low for him to use. The couch was a hide-a-bed. She pulled it out, and made the bed for him. Then she turned to him.

    Shane, do me a favor. Please, please, don’t smoke in my house.”

    I won’t smoke in your house,” he said. He didn’t tell her that when he was grab­bing the things he needed as he left his home, he’d not put in the ten-bag of weed that lay next to his cash. After the fresh smell of recently smoked mar­i­juana in that apart­ment, and Darla’s body in the bath­tub, he was pretty cer­tain that he wasn’t going to want to smoke for a long, long time.

    *********

    The blurb: The first part of the writ­ing was uncom­fort­able for me, because I didn't know where I was going with this story when I picked up where I left off. I just kept punch­ing the keys, albeit with a bit of hes­i­ta­tion. After about 500 words or so I felt like I was begin­ning to loosen up and the words came freely. That was about the point that I began to enjoy it. This is the last page I wrote before baby woke up (and a few extra words). It's pretty raw.

    • Marianne

      Hey Casey — That was inter­est­ing. Of course now I want to know what's going on and what will hap­pen. I hope you post some more as you work on this. Thanks.

    • Claire Vorster

      This story got me right at the first line. And the last is so good. Want more. You go girl!

  • http://writex3.blogspot.com/ Steph

    I used this prac­tice to wrap up a short story for another flash fic­tion chal­lenge that closes tomor­row. I didn't really know where my story was going and was going to just scrap it, but I went with it as per your advice and enjoyed the writ­ing (for bet­ter or worse!) and fin­ished. In reread­ing it, I real­ized that I had writ­ten the exact oppo­site of the direc­tions. Oh well! Process, right? (-;

    I'll just post a link since I went way over the 15 minutes.

    http://writex3.blogspot.com/2012/02/unmaking-sandwich.html

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      I'm so happy this helped you fin­ish some­thing, Steph. That's huge! Even if you didn't fol­low the directions :)

    • Marianne

      Steph — another won­der­ful story from you. I've left com­ments at your site. Thanks

  • http://jblearnstowrite.tumblr.com/ JB Lacaden

    Thank you Joe. In one of your pre­vi­ous posts, we had to list down obsta­cles we find in our writ­ing. Lack of dis­ci­pline is one of mine. But you just revealed to me that it isn't really the lack of dis­ci­pline that is the prob­lem it is the fear of the messi­ness of my work. I have to admit, this hit me spot on. I want to pro­duce a great story so much that it the pres­sure slowly takes away the fun in writing.

    Thanks again for this post!

    I'll post my exer­cise later today. :)

    • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

      Call me silly, but it took me a long time to real­ize that writ­ers didn't just type up a per­fect first draft. I really did think that what came out on the first try was indica­tive of whether one's writ­ing was any good or not. Mine was not, and it scared me away from writ­ing for a long time. It was very messy. Now I real­ize that it's sup­posed to be. And it's com­fort­ing to know that other writ­ers expe­ri­ence the same thing.

      As I procrastinate…

      • Claire Vorster

        Writing, mak­ing it good, takes a lit­tle time. But it is always worth the wait :)

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      I do remem­ber that, JB :) I was sur­prised so many peo­ple wrote that, and that's one of the rea­sons I wrote this post (besides the fact that I was strug­gling with the same prob­lem). Too many peo­ple think they have a dis­ci­pline prob­lem when their prob­lem is really some­thing else.

  • Sarah-Rachael Murdoch

    I loved this. I haven't really writ­ten as I should in a long while. I write a bit every­day, but calm, relax­ing writ­ing is what I really needed. I needed to sit with good music play­ing and a beau­ti­ful image in mind and the steady stream of key­strokes to push me for­ward. I am cer­tainly grate­ful for the kick start. Thanks!

    She stood at the win­dow, hold­ing the mug and curl­ing her arms against her chest. She curled in on her­self as if to hide from the world and the light stream­ing through the dusty win­dow pane. I need to clean that some­time. She ven­tured a fin­ger against the glass. She pulled back with a fin­ger­print of dust and dirt. Some of it crawled under her nail. She bit her lip and wiped her hand on her jeans.

    What are you doing?”

    His voice rolled out from behind her like a fresh bed sheet. Her anx­i­ety melted at the sound of his voice, dipped in sleep and dry­ing with his move­ments. She smiled, turn­ing her head just slightly so he could get a glimpse of her mouth.

    He loved when she did that. He sat up in bed and held his breath, held his breath as if that would keep her frozen in that pose for­ever. The slight lift of her lips, the round­ness of her cheek, the way she never really looked at him but at the air scin­til­lat­ing around his naked body. Her fig­ure, so much like an excep­tional por­trait of a soft model, entranced him like a steadily swing­ing watch. Side to side. Side to side. Side to side. Early morn­ing sun­light caressed her sil­ver. Sunlight with his dusky hair and amber eyes wrapped his fin­gers around her smooth, unas­sum­ing edges and cra­dled her there with the look of some­one who under­stood the idea that he held all of time in his hand. The sun­light touched her like a mas­ter and ser­vant, both pro­tect­ing and sup­port­ing that beau­ti­ful fig­ure and that sweet slip of a smile.

    Just think­ing.”

    Her mouth shaped per­fectly around the words, taken aback at the sharp clicks of the con­so­nants. Though he heard and lis­tened to her, he most enjoy watch­ing how her mouth acted dur­ing her voice’s diverse mono­logues. He pressed his hands into the bed, into the blan­kets and pil­lows and sheets and love they had made just a few hours ago. His shoul­ders came for­ward a lit­tle. His stom­ach creased ever so slightly, and the cov­ers fell from his golden skin.

    The breath caught in her breast when he sat up. How many times had she watched him do that after a night of lov­ing and whis­per­ing? Yet she still found her heart beat­ing faster when he did it. She never could quite name what it was that affected her so when he sat up in bed, but now she felt that she had time to try. Was it the way his hands dis­ap­peared in the blan­kets? Was it how his mus­cles stirred just enough to move him? Was it the way his freck­led shoul­ders rolled for­ward and forced his head up from their embrace? Was it that sub­tle crease in his stom­ach when he hunched like that? Or was it the way he never once slipped and tum­bled down? Of all the times she had seen him sit up in bed, she had never wit­nessed a mis­placed hand or blan­ket. He was sturdy and con­fi­dent and easy when he pushed him­self up to look at her bet­ter. The bed never let him fall. She lay beneath him like a hushed lover. She put her hands on him and lifted him into the sky. He was her great­est trea­sure no mat­ter what the Bible said about stor­ing up trea­sures on earth. She would hold him dear for as long as she lived. She would wrap her arms around him and hold him up with the strength of one who knows how much they are needed even if the other per­son does not want to admit it. The bed remained strong and silent beneath his weight and movement.

    May I join you?”

    She smiled again and nodded.

    He climbed out of bed.

    The morn­ing sun­light brushed his bare skin. He put his arms around her and lifted her into his arms. She laughed and put her cup on the win­dow sill.

    The light ran among the dust on the window.

  • http://thefirebirdjournal.blogspot.com/ Katya

    WOW! I've been fol­low­ing you for a while but this is prob­a­bly the best blog post I've read on this blog!!

    I did enjoy writ­ing today (wrote a bit over 15 mins), but it's likely due to the fact that I've had a good day and I'm not rush­ing any­where right now.

    Excerpt from today's writing:

    Rahul pulled the hood over his head and secured it with a pin under his chin. His black shroud loosely wrapped his body. He was sweat­ing pro­fusely.
    Come on, I’ve done this before.
    Some dis­tance behind him, fifty men stood hid­ing behind a huge rock. This oper­a­tion was any­thing but safe. If they were going to walk away from this place with the right man­u­scripts, he needed as many of them alive as pos­si­ble.
    He looked back and made sure they were all a safe dis­tance away.
    “Well, here we go,” he mut­tered.
    Then he lit the fuse.

    A shrouded fig­ure appeared in the entrance, hur­ried in, and then stopped, appar­ently notic­ing Idan.
    “Ah, great, we have com­pany” the man’s voice bel­lowed in the cave. More Shads piled in right behind him, unsheath­ing their swords.
    “Tell you what, you guys can just turn around, and go home, and I promise you nobody gets hurt,” Idan said, loud and clear.
    The Shad laughed, “Brave chicken they got here!” His eyes glis­tened bright red. “Get him, guys.”

    The boy heard the com­mo­tion long before he saw the light from their torches. The sound of metal cling­ing against metal. Muffled voices. A famil­iar voice yelped, “Don’t you touch that!”
    Idan?

    (I'm try­ing to write one big story from the per­spec­tive of mul­ti­ple peo­ple who are involved in it… Thus the breaks in the story)

    • Yvettecarol

      This is great Katya. Is this for a short story or a novel? I think the pace is excel­lent and keeps you read­ing. There are cer­tain lit­tle clues like the black cloth 'shroud­ing' him, and the fifty men 'hid­ing' that increase the ten­sion. Well done.

      • http://thefirebirdjournal.blogspot.com/ Katya

        Thank you :) It's for a novel. My goal is to write a high-paced adven­ture novel that would appeal to some­one like my 11-year-old brother who thinks read­ing is bor­ing. He is one of my pri­mary motivations.

        • Yvettecarol

          Katya bless you a thou­sand times over. You've just switched on a light for me!! My brother has never ever read a book for plea­sure. I don't know why I haven't thought of using him as a moti­va­tor before. But this fits in nicely with my own secret wish to entice boys in to read­ing as well. I have always thought it such a shame that most boys will not read a book unless forced to for school. My brother really strug­gled with English at school, writ­ing, read­ing the whole gamut. I am filled with renewed fer­vour. Squeeeeee!!!!

    • MarianneVest

      That was inter­est­ing. You do get the feel­ing of lots of action, stop and go type stuff. You got a lot done in fif­teen minutes

  • Jeanne Moran

    It's like Christopher Vogler said in "The Writer's Journey." Trust the path.

  • Yvettecarol

    'I'd just set­tled into my easy chair, ah, an old fella needs a good chair to sit down in and sleep in but ssh, don't tell the lit­tle ones that. They laugh enough at old grandpa as it is. I skooch down and find the sweet spot in my chair and then lis­ten. Just lis­ten. The crick­ets sing their sweet good­night songs, the faint hoot of night-calling birds drifts up over the banks and the shush of the sea behind that, more dis­tant, lulls me to sleep.'

    Gosh Joe, that was interesting!

    A really good exper­i­ment. I found, first of all that writ­ing that way, caused me to fade out all over the place — my mind wan­dered to every imag­in­able avenue of jobs need­ing doing, out­stand­ing bills, etc — and yet when I did come back to the writ­ing I was still relaxed. And sec­ond, I wrote in new ways. I would never have "thought" of some of those turns of phrase normally.

    • MarianneVest

      I love that first sen­tence. It's hard to use excla­ma­tions and have the fit or work. I think the rhythm is what makes it work so well, and helps catch the atmos­phere of a calm sleepy moment.

      • Yvettecarol

        Thanks Marianne! Funny how we think we have to sweat over every­thing. I've been wor­ry­ing about start­ing off my grandpa piece for at least a month now, so haven't gone near it. Yet when Joe sug­gested this exer­cise I thought well, why not try it on this quandary and see if I can get it rolling? By relax­ing and breath­ing (almost day­dream­ing) it sim­ply hap­pened by itself. I kind of needed some back-up on it though, so thanks again.

  • http://writerreinvented.wordpress.com/ Afia Lee

    Joe, this is so true. How free­ing to get com­pletely filthy in the process of cre­at­ing with­out wor­ry­ing, too much, about how you look in the end. Like the photo illus­trates, to get so immersed in your project that it is seep­ing into your pours and mouth is a great place to be. Maybe it will all be a com­plete mess in the end, but maybe it won't.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Totally! And even if it is a mess, Afia, it might still be art.

      • http://writerreinvented.wordpress.com/ Afia Lee

        You are so right! My Jackson Pollock mas­ter­piece may look like a 4 year-old's art project to you.

  • Allyhawkins

    One of the things I learned while writ­ing my YA novel and hav­ing to meet a dead­line with my writ­ing coach was, just write the bones of the chap­ter. That's what the rough draft is about any­way. Revision is where the story evolves into what you envi­sioned it to be.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Yeah, I like dead­lines because it forces me to con­front the mess.

  • MarianneVest

    This is for a con­test and I really do want to know what you all think. I did enjoy work­ing on it this morn­ing, but last night I hated it. I am using foun­tain pens with col­ored ink and that is really help­ing me feel bet­ter about writ­ing. I can sit any­where and I can draw lit­tle things in the mar­gins when I'm think­ing. The ink itself has been very messy, and when I play cards with the ladies with green, turquoise and red ink all over my fin­gers I feel a lit­tle odd but artis­tic at the same time. They don't care, they think it's funny.

    Bruno T. Beast knew that Manny wasn’t any hal­lu­ci­na­tion, wasn’t the result of brain dam­age or some kind of men­tal ill­ness like schiz­o­phre­nia or manic-depression. Bruno’s mind was as clear as it had ever been. Manny was a ghost, a haunt, a curse, and that was a fact. Bruno’s wife, Dawn, his man­ager, Roy and all the rest of them thought that on the night when Bruno hit Manny’s face with an over­hand right, smashed Manny’s skull into his brain, leav­ing him dead on the mat before the doc­tor could get to him, on that very night they thought Bruno had lost his mind, but Bruno knew that Manny was real. He knew because he’d looked at Manny lying on his back in the ring and in the mid­dle of Manny’s punched in face was one eye, and that eye had winked twice at Bruno. Slowly it had looked right into Bruno’s eyes and shut and then opened again and then shut and then opened. It was a shiny mean eye and it wasn’t going to let Bruno for­get what he’d done.

    Bruno shiv­ered.

    Are you cold?” asked Dawn who was sit­ting beside him read­ing about Angelina in People Magazine. She loved Angelina, thought she looked like her.

    No,” was all Bruno would say. He was mad at her, at Roy, at all of them.

    The office smelled musty like a dirty aquarium.

    Maybe we could get some­thing to eat after we fin­ish up here,” said Dawn.

    Not hun­gry,” said Manny.

    • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

      Is Bruno a boxer?

      I like this so far, although I had to read that sec­ond sen­tence twice to make sure I read it right. It was a lit­tle long, with a few peo­ple to keep straight. :) I enjoy sto­ries where the char­ac­ters are haunted in some way.

      And I like the thought of you with stained fin­gers. It's things like that that jus­tify the label "artist."

      • MarianneVest

        Thanks Casey. I was wor­ried about that sen­tence. I guess I'm not Faulkner yet ; )

        I do like the col­ored inks!!!

      • MarianneVest

        Oh I for­got Bruno is a boxer. That's part of the prompt. It has to be about a boxer who has a per­son whom he's killed come back when the pro­tag­o­nist is in the ring. Fortunately my hus­band knows about sports so I said "over­hand right" instead of "right over­hand." This would not be a topic I would choose but in a way I like that.

    • http://writex3.blogspot.com/ Steph

      Cool idea. It reminded me of a Lawrence Block novel I read about box­ing. The ghost will be a great medium (pun intended) to reveal inner con­flict for Bruno. I liked your char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Dawn. I feel like I know her already!

      What about start­ing a new para­graph after "that was a fact."? (Tee-hee, gram­mar lady on this blog, did I do those quotes right?)

      • MarianneVest

        Thanks Steph. I really appre­ci­ate your read­ing and com­ment­ing. I do think a new para­graph would be good there. Thanks for your ideas. I enjoy Lawrence Block, espe­cially to lis­ten to when i'm dri­ving long dis­tances. He has such a good sense of humor.

    • Yvettecarol

      Omg Marianne! That was some pow­er­ful writ­ing right there. It gave me goose­bumps. That 'shiny mean eye' wasn't going to let him for­get.… Brrr! How did you get that idea, to use the ghost as a metaphor for his con­science? It's genius.

      • MarianneVest

        Thanks so much Yvettecarol! I didn't really think up the ghost though. The prompt was to have a boxer think that a man whom he'd acci­den­tally killed was in the ring with him. I'm really glad you like the 'shiny mean eye' Thanks for tak­ing the time to read and com­ment. I appre­ci­ate it.

  • Themagicviolinist

    I'm eleven (almost twelve) and I'm work­ing on a story. It's a post-apocalyptic story sort of like "The Hunger Games" and I could use some advice from peo­ple older and more expe­ri­enced than I am. Here's the first chap­ter. Let me know what you think! :D

    Chapter 1

    I live in a sex­ist coun­try.
    It is a place where girls do all the work­ing, men do what­ever they please, and girls get sent to jail for the rest of their life for the tini­est thing.
    But that’s not the worst of it.
    Each year, President Hunter has a com­pe­ti­tion called The Maze of Doom. It’s been going on for twenty years. Let me tell you about it.
    The Maze of Doom is a huge maze filled with dan­gers. Ten dif­fer­ent girls rang­ing from the age of twelve to eigh­teen race to the end of the maze. Their prize is a sin­gle wish. But no girl has sur­vived yet. Girls are allowed one weapon each, pro­vided by President Hunter. Girls can make tem­po­rary alliances, but they can also kill each other. It’s a grue­some maze.
    Some, if they are in the maze, plan to wish for riches or fame. Others plan to wish for their sis­ters to get out of jail for not pol­ish­ing their boss’s shoes exactly right.
    I have a dif­fer­ent wish.
    I have been ran­domly cho­sen by the country’s leader to be entered in The Maze of Doom.
    Our country’s leader is revolt­ing. He made The Maze of Doom for enter­tain­ment. He likes the idea of girls killing each other. For him, it’s just one less worker to pay.
    But I have to sur­vive the maze to make my wish. As I said, no girl has sur­vived yet. I plan to change that, too.

    Today is the day I say good­bye to my fam­ily and leave for “Maze Training”. Really, it’s to see how good each girl is so the coun­try can place their bets to see who will sur­vive the longest.
    My mom starts to cry as I pull on my boots. My dad puts his arm around her. He tries to com­fort her, but the tears keep on com­ing.
    “Don’t cry, Mom,” I say. “I’ll be fine.” But even I can’t promise that.
    My mom hugs me and bawls. Dots appear on my shirt’s sleeve.
    “Carrie, she’ll be fine,” My dad straight­ens his glasses and tries to hide his water­ing eyes. “You know our Clelia. She’s one tough cookie.”
    My mom attempts to talk as my dad hugs her again.
    “My daugh­ter!” she cries. “My only daugh­ter! In The Maze! She’s only four­teen.”
    “I know,” He says. “I know.”
    I hug each of them again.
    “I love you guys,” I say in a fal­ter­ing voice. “But when I come back, every­thing will be bet­ter.”
    I hear a knock on the door. My dad goes to answer it.
    “Hello,” I hear him say. “Won’t you come in?”
    “Actually, I’m here for Clelia,” A female voice answers. No sur­prise there. All of President Hunter’s employ­ees are female.
    I hug my mom one last time and walk into the kitchen. It only took a few steps to get from the liv­ing room to the kitchen.
    “Ah,” The young woman stand­ing in the door­way ges­tures for me to come out­side with her. “There she is. Come.”
    I hug my dad, look around our sin­gle floor house (or hut, as I like to call it) one last time, and walk out­side. My mom won’t stop cry­ing.
    “Mom,” I say. “Please don’t worry about me. Besides, you won’t have to keep won­der­ing what’s going on. You can read the whole thing in The Mazeazines.”
    The Mazeazines are mag­a­zines all about The Maze. Once The Maze of Doom starts, the entire thing will be watched and typed for the whole coun­try to read. They don’t help much though, since the reporters make every­thing more dra­matic. Even though we can never see what’s going on, I can tell that that’s not what’s actu­ally hap­pen­ing.
    “Clelia!” The woman stands by her car, tap­ping her foot impa­tiently.
    “I love you,” I say before walk­ing to the men­ac­ing, black, car.
    The woman opens the car door. I get inside and wave at my par­ents until they dis­ap­pear from view com­pletely.
    I remain silent the entire trip to President Hunter’s main build­ing.
    An hour later, the black car pulls up to a tow­er­ing sky­scraper.
    “Here we are,” The woman says in a bored voice. “Follow me.”
    The tone of her voice makes it obvi­ous that she has done this same rou­tine for quite some time.
    I fol­lowed her down the hall and into the ele­va­tor. I gasped. There were 70 dif­fer­ent but­tons. The woman had to go onto her toes to reach the 30 but­ton.
    The ele­va­tor went up and made a ding noise.
    The woman entered the big, cir­cu­lar, room. I fol­lowed her and saw five dif­fer­ent peo­ple. I rec­og­nized four of them from pre­vi­ous Mazes. They were the train­ers. The strength, agility, climb­ing, and weaponry train­ers. The other I knew just from liv­ing in this coun­try. President Hunter. The evil leader that started this maze.
    “Good,” He said. “You finally arrived. As you know, the con­tes­tants aren’t allowed to see each other until the maze begins, so you will be pri­vately trained in this room. The reporter should be here any sec­ond now.”
    As if on cue, the ele­va­tor dinged again, and two women appeared. One car­ried a cam­era to take pic­tures, the other, a note­book and pen.
    “If every­one is ready, the train­ing shall begin!” President Hunter stepped back. The cam­er­a­woman started snap­ping pic­tures and the reporter started scrib­bling furi­ously.
    There were four sec­tions of the room I could go to. Each sec­tion had its own equip­ment. I decided to start with the worst and work my way up. I’m ter­ri­ble at phys­i­cal activ­i­ties, like climb­ing, and lift­ing weights, but I’m good at run­ning and using small weapons like dag­gers for hunt­ing or build­ing things.
    I started at the strength train­ing.
    “Hi,” The female strength trainer said. “My name’s Candace. Nice to meet you.” Her leg and arm mus­cles were very vis­i­ble. You could tell she stayed in shape. And besides look­ing strong, she seemed like she could be decently nice, even friendly, unlike most work­ers here. I don’t blame most of them for being un-friendly, the way they get paid.
    I took her hand and shook it.
    “So,” Candace said. “Would you like to start with the weights, the sit-ups and push-ups, or bag car­ry­ing?”
    I selected the bag car­ry­ing.
    “Come on, Clelia!” Candace encour­aged me. “You can do it!”
    I had car­ried six bags of bricks across the room on my shoul­ders already. Four more to go.
    “Almost done,” Candace kept yelling. “Two more! Just two more!”
    It was nice that Candace was help­ing me, but it was a lit­tle annoy­ing.
    “That’s it! One last one! And, you’re done!”
    I wiped the sweat off my fore­head and walked back over to Candace.
    “That was really good,” She said hand­ing me a towel for my sweat. “Do you need some water?”
    I nod­ded my head grate­fully, still gasp­ing for breath. I took the bot­tled water from Candace and gulped down almost half.
    “Let’s move on to the weights.”
    Candace handed me two weights. They must’ve both weighed at least twenty pounds.
    “I want you to lift one at a time. So raise the right one first with your arm locked, then do the same thing with your left arm. Then lift them both at the same time. Got that?”
    I nod­ded my head again. I’m a girl of many words.
    I con­tin­ued with my strength train­ing. I thanked Candace and moved on to climb­ing. The trainer wasn’t nearly as nice as Candace was. But it didn’t mat­ter since all she had me do was climb a rock wall about fifty times over. I did hor­ri­bly. I kept slip­ping on rocks and I took for­ever to get up once. Strength and climb­ing? Not very good at all.
    I moved on to agility. I ran a tread­mill for ten min­utes at a good, steady pace, and then jumped rope for a while. All in all, not bad.
    It was time for weaponry.
    I had to use each weapon they had and try them out. At the end of the train­ing, I would get to select a weapon for the maze. I had to choose care­fully, because once I chose, I couldn’t change my mind.
    “Welcome to weaponry,” The female trainer said in a bored voice. “I’m Teresa and I’ll be you’re trainer. Remember never to use your weapon for any­thing except what you’re told to do, blah, blah, blah. Let’s get started. Choose your weapon.”
    There were many dif­fer­ent choices; A bow and arrow, a sword, a spear, a mace, a whip, and a dag­ger.
    I chose the bow and arrow.
    “Do you know how to use a bow and arrow?” Teresa asked. I nod­ded. I had used one before, but I was rusty.
    “Then try to shoot this tar­get.” Teresa walked over to the wall and pointed at the tar­get. I pulled back the arrow and shot, but I shot way off course. Teresa had to duck her head to avoid get­ting hit. It struck the wall and stuck there.
    “Guess you’re not going to be using that in the maze,” She said. “Try some­thing else.”
    I took the spear. Again, she had me throw it at the tar­get. I threw, but not hard enough. I tried again and again, but it would drop on the ground three feet away from me. Again, I am not very strong at all.
    I tried the sword, the mace, and the whip, but every sin­gle one was a fail­ure.
    I took the last weapon. A dag­ger com­plete with a small sheath.
    “Ah ha ha!” Teresa started laugh­ing. “That is the wimp­i­est weapon I have ever-!”
    I threw the dag­ger hard at the tar­get. It flew and hit the bull’s eye.
    Teresa’s mouth hung open.
    “W-would you like to choose the dag­ger f-for your w-weapon?” She stut­tered.
    I turned away from Teresa and walked to the tar­get. I pulled my dag­ger out, and sheathed it around my pants.
    I knew every­one was going to hear about my “rage and fury at the weapon trainer”. I knew they would read about me throw­ing the dag­ger. But they wouldn’t know any­thing. They wouldn’t know that I imag­ined President Hunter’s face on that bull’s eye as I threw the dagger.

    • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

      You've got a very good start here. I'm impressed. Contests with incred­i­ble odds against the con­tes­tants make for sus­pense­ful read­ing. So why do the boys get the easy life? What is it that makes those in author­ity not like girls, and why does the soci­ety accept it?

      I've never read "The Hunger Games," but this does remind me of some short sto­ries by Stephen King.

      • Themagicviolinist

        Thank you! :D The pres­i­dent thinks boys are stronger, smarter, and more capa­ble then girls and, in gen­eral, is just a cruel per­son. Nobody can do any­thing about it because the pres­i­dent has too much power.

        • Claire Vorster

          …which I think will res­onate deeply with your read­ers, because most pres­i­dents have too much power. Good job!

    • MarianneVest

      I think it’s good so far. I’m going to point out some places that could use work and I’m not doing it because I don’t like your work, but because I think it's really good and I'm will­ing to use my time to go over it and offer my opinions.

      There are a few things you might want to look out for like mak­ing pro­noun ref­er­ences very clear.

      I pulled back the arrow and shot, but I shot way off course. Teresa had to duck her head to avoid get­ting hit. It struck the wall and stuck there.” — For a moment I thought Teresa’s head struck the wall etc. Of course on read­ing it again I see what you mean.

      Also you might want to slow down a lit­tle and describe how things look, feel, smell etc. The weapons, how do a few of them look? Celia’s father, does he smell like after­shave when she hugs him? Things like that. It means slow­ing down but if you are one of us who needs to write the story out quickly, to keep your writ­ing pace up, you can always go back and add description.

      I like the dia­logue. It sounds very nat­ural for the most part, and dia­logue is hard for most of us.

      I won­der why the Celia and her father try to tell the mother that the daugh­ter will be all right, when we’ve already been told that all of the girls who go into the maze don’t make it out alive. You have a com­pli­cated story so you need to be very consistent.

      You are off to a good start I think. You write bet­ter than many adults and I really mean that. Keep at it! Very well done!!!

    • Yvettecarol

      Kudos to you magic vio­lin­ist! You're a writer that's for sure.
      For a start, keep going, and don't give up!
      My advice to you would be to take a note­book and write some notes on every­thing; your char­ac­ters, their likes, dis­likes, hob­bies, fears; your set­ting, where is it, when, what time of year is it, what does it look like; your plot­line, what hap­pens, and do you have sub­plots?
      It's not that all these types of details will nec­es­sar­ily become part of your story but that in you know­ing them, your story will gather depth and mean­ing.
      Good luck and stay in love with what you do!

  • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

    I have to unplug the inter­net con­nec­tion and turn off the wire­less to avoid pro­cras­ti­nat­ing when I'm writing.

    Last night was really dif­fi­cult, because I wasn't sure where my story was going to go next, or how to get there. I had to write through it, and it was excru­ci­at­ing, but I did get to the other side. After about a thou­sand words of dri­vel, I can prob­a­bly use about two hun­dred of them towards the actual fin­ished project. It's still two hun­dred more words than the story had the night before though.

    I might post a part of what I work on later tonight. Right now I've got roar­ing chil­dren. :0

    • MarianneVest

      I know what you mean about it being excru­ci­at­ing and get­ting to "the other side", and if I got 200 good words out of 1,000 I'd be happy. You can do it Casey. I gave up for a long time when my child was young and I really regret that now. How many lit­tle lions do you have?

      • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

        Four. Almost-2 to 10. They are great fun, except when I'm try­ing to write.

        • MarianneVest

          Bless your heart! Four, that's a lot, a whole lot./

    • Yvettecarol

      My roar­ing chil­dren have gone to school. But my head is still echoing!

  • http://twitter.com/preist Igor Putina

    Oh how sweet is pro­cras­ti­na­tion – like those few min­utes of sleep in between alarm snoozes on a cold morning.

  • Vanessa

    Wow your words really speak to me. It's the same con­ver­sa­tion I've been hav­ing with my boyfriend lately. I tend to get over­whelmed by the process instead of div­ing in and enjoy­ing it, no mat­ter how long it takes. I'm told, and I know it's true, noth­ing is stop­ping me from ful­fill­ing my goals but me. Very timely post. Thanks.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Awesome. Thanks Vanessa!

  • appans

    Procrastination is unac­cept­able. Project must be com­pleted in time. I must be dis­ci­plined. This project must be the begin­ning of my path with a heart.

    We put so many demands on our­selves. The hope, the direc­tion, and the des­ti­na­tion are all ideal. We taste vic­tory by pro­jec­tion of mind. We are mov­ing per­fectly and sooner as the prover­bial rab­bit we rest. In the dis­guise of search­ing enrich­ing ideas to aug­ment our project we move into Facebook or Pinterest or the latest.

    Our mind has become smarter than us. Mind is ancient. It has seen all this hap­pen before. Mind knows that it is being pulled on an end­less jour­ney of ambi­tion. Mind needs a break to renew and revi­tal­ize. It rests for a while.

    Krishna Kumar

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      This was a really inter­est­ing explo­ration, Krishna. I thought this was par­tic­u­larly good, "Mind knows that it is being pulled on an end­less jour­ney of ambi­tion." I won­der if the mind minds the journey?

      • http://kinswomans-pursuit.blogspot.com/ Casey

        I think my mind craves the jour­ney, but not while it is actu­ally on it. It also likes look­ing back on the jour­ney, but not the strug­gle it took to get there.

      • appans

        If your mind is allowed to be smarter, it will not mind. I am of the opin­ion that it helps to be friendly with our minds. Mind may revolt against too much discipline.

    • Yvettecarol

      Most inter­est­ing com­ment Krishna. I agree with Joe, I was drawn to the 'mind being pulled by ambi­tion' part. I think this is the biggest obsta­cle to true cre­ativ­ity, is that our ego gets caught up in want­ing grat­i­fi­ca­tion instead of enjoy­ing the moment. "I want to get this book pub­lished" becomes the greater voice rather than the authen­tic voice that belongs to "this is the ful­fill­ment of my inner drive for mean­ing". I loved what John Marsden (Australian writer) said once, that he never hur­ries a book, he doesn't push him­self to write more than a page a day, because he "likes to savour the process".…

      • appans

        Thank you for your appre­ci­a­tion. I agree with Mr. Marsden's way of writ­ing in a relaxed and enjoy­able man­ner. What we write is fully our's only when we are writ­ing it. We must rel­ish it at that very moment.Once it is pub­lished, it belongs to the world.

        Krishna.

  • rmullns

    I did enjoy the thought of the exer­cise you pro­pose Joe. Hoever, being a pro­cra­tochist, I'm rather enjoy­ing the idea of sim­ply ignor­ing the exer­cise until tomor­row — or never!

    Love your empire here, Joe …

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      HA!

      And my empire? What empire is that?

  • http://www.not-just-a-name.blogspot.com/ Sherrey Meyer

    Joe, your words are knock­ing at my door! Raised by a mom I could never please, I was always striv­ing for big­ger, bet­ter, per­fect — and yes, I still do. I've been won­der­ing what's stand­ing in my way of get­ting down to busi­ness on my project. I'm going to answer that knock at the door, and I'll just learn to deal with the messi­ness and the mis­takes and the slow­ness. Ah, sigh .… . .

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      I feel for you, Sherrey. Remember your process is not a per­for­mance. As Julia Cameron said, "It is impos­si­ble to get *bet­ter and look good at the same time**."**
      *

    • Yvettecarol

      I empathise too Sherrey! Except in my case it was my dad who could never just look at my work and say, 'Well done!' So I kept try­ing harder & harder, all to no avail. For gals like you and I the chal­lenge is to "let go". I strug­gle with this all the time. It's a work in progress, shall we say. Take heart, there are oth­ers who feel exactly the same way :-)

    • http://jblearnstowrite.tumblr.com/ JB Lacaden

      In my case, it isn't a mom or a dad that I can't seem to please, it's myself.

  • Heidi

    Good word, Mr. Bunting.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Why thank you, Miss Tobe.

  • http://iamconvicted.com Brett Henley

    Man … just hav­ing this exact con­ver­sa­tion with my wife.

    Fear causes all types of poor/destructive behav­iors for writ­ers. Fear gen­er­ally leads to over­an­a­lyz­ing, which leads to paral­y­sis, and so on.

    Time to just move. I say it all the time, even when I'm lousy at apply­ing to my own work.

    I think Jeff gets this bet­ter than most Joe … best advice he ever gave me was to stop plan­ning, turn off my brain and just do the work.

    I gen­er­ally suck at that, but I'm work­ing on it :)

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Great advice, but how do you turn off your brain? I'd like to find the switch so I can turn it on and off at will. Usually what I have to do is grieve the mess, embrace the pain of it, and try to find some kind of joy in its midst.

      • http://iamconvicted.com Brett Henley

        Yeah man, I have no idea where the off switch is. For me, I'd have to wade through the NYC-sized cir­cus first.

        If I can get started and not con­tem­plate every angle before I do … then I'm good.

        • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

          HA! Great anal­ogy, an NYC-sized circus!

  • Allie Lousch

    This morn­ing, I hand wrote a blog about how messy life is and then stum­bled over this good post. Thanks Joe!

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      You're the sec­ond per­son who has told me they've been writ­ing about messi­ness, Allie. Isn't that funny!

  • http://www.pjreece.ca/blog/wordpress PJ Reece

    Joe…yes! I've just fin­ished an eBook project in which I was quite "messed" up deep in the mid­dle. I thought I might go insane because I couldn't get it right. But there in the deep mid­dle, I had this feel­ing that if I just kept com­ing at my sub­ject from a dif­fer­ent angle — ignor­ing how long it took — that this idea of mine would sharpen, sharpen, sharpen. I was vis­ited by this feel­ing that being lost in the mid­dle of my cloud would prove to have a sil­ver lin­ing (messed up metaphor). I'm late at the fin­ish­ing line but happy with the work as it turned out. Good post!

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      I love that, PJ, both your stick-to-itiveness and your metaphor of being lost in a cloud with a sil­ver lin­ing. Wonderful.

      • Yvettecarol

        Yeah me too. Awesome response PJ

  • http://artistsroad.wordpress.com/ Patrick Ross

    Oh my, this is speak­ing to me right now. I keep stalling on a free­lance project that's due in a few days. It's a bit dif­fer­ent than I usu­ally do, and it's for a new client, so I want it to rock. And here I am, on your blog instead of work­ing on it! OK, I'll remind myself it doesn't have to be per­fect and return to it.

    • http://joebunting.com Joe Bunting

      Isn't it always when we have the high­est hopes for our work that it becomes hard­est to actu­ally do the work? Good luck, Patrick. I'm sure it will be great, and even if it's not, I hope you enjoy the process.