…is wonderful
challenging
depressing
overwhelming
daunting
exhilirating
and of course, re-creative. *wink*
Rob Bell, in his new book/tour Drops Like Stars, discusses the endless connections between suffering and creativity. Great, for all those authors out there who thought this was going to be easy, think again! It’s interesting, but so often I don’t think of writing as a difficult process or something that necessitates suffering in order to bring about the creativity needed to craft a book, devotion or other piece.
Yet, the process that is the RE-creative project isn’t easy.
I struggle all the time with getting the right words out on paper, dealing with the overwhelming number of possible directions the book could go, organizing the different pieces that pop into my head, reading other people’s work on the topic (there is…A LOT), hitting self-imposed but promised-to-others deadlines etc.
The inspiration comes in bits and pieces and there are some wonderful moments of “a-ha!” or times when I get things done on-time and in good order.
However, there are a lot of other times where I am re-organizing, deleting, re-writing, re-reading, re-organizing and deleting and then staring at the computer screen without an ounce of creative writing within me…or if it is there I don’t have a way to bring it out.
This week I am re-organizing the book again. Now, the introduction will be Chapter 1, Chapter 1 will be Chapter 2 and Chapter 2 will be Chapter 3. Thus, the up-coming Chapter 3 will actually be Chapter 4 (out of 6 or 7). I did decide on what Chapter 4 will be about (kind of) and how Chapter 5 will flow. Furthermore, I started a rough sketch of Chapter 6. There may be a Chapter 7…we will see.
Thanks to everyone who supported me along the way so far. It’s been a great process! It is really fantastic having such a transparent process that can be shared and collaborated on by so many others in so many corners of the world. You are all great friends and the acknowledgements are going to be out of control!
Thanks, and hopefully I will be posting Chapter 4: Striving After Wind (formerly Chapter 3) in the coming weeks.
Shalom.
-Ken
P.S. Check out the Ubuntu blog http://ubuntuspirit.wordpress.com to read up about my (our) “Dream for Three” initiative. Peace.
Recreative 