electric mist

re-charging

I think one of the things about down-time like the recently self-inflicted painting projects is that it's my way of re-charging by being forced to do other stuff. Granted, it's productive stuff, and much needed and I'm am already LOVING the doors and the whole closing-out-the-world concept, but during all of these projects, I didn't have time to work on the book. If I sat down at the computer this last month, it was either to frantically catch up on business stuff or, somewhere around midnight, to check e-mail and check in on other bloggers. The two brain cells which weren't burnt out already for the day were snoring and refused to be roused for anything remotely creative that didn't mean the immediate acquisition of chocolate.

However, my perverse little brain can't stay away from writing all that long, and as the projects grew and grew and GREW, the story kept popping into my head, with details I hadn't thought of before, with complications for the characters which delighted me or made me laugh, and with odd bits and pieces of dialog which illuminated something critical I had been pondering just a month ago. It always gets to the point in these projects where I am absolutely certain I am going to DIE if I have to keep painting, if I have to paint even one more inch of anything, even if it's something I have wanted for years and years and stood like a little kid on Christmas morning when it was being installed and said, "Oh, YES, I'll be GLAD to paint it," with the same genuine sincerity that a ten-year-old has when they're promising that yes, they will be the ones to feed the puppy FOREVER and WALK it, even in the rain or heat or Saturday mornings in the middle of cartoons. It never lasts.

I reached that "I'm going to die" point about mid-way through yesterday, when there were still two baseboards which needed a third coat mocking my vigilance. They will get it later. The doors are up and finished, all of the molding is done in this office and in the adjacent foyer, and everything is cleaned and put back to order. (We have to install the knobs on the French doors, still, and then there will be photos.) But right now, I am itching to get back to the novel and sink back into the luxury of creating a world where I can describe it without having to paint it. I think I'm re-charged.

Posted by toni at July 6, 2004 11:31 PM