The Silent and Brave Revision: page #67

As I dust off my mind and my iPad from the craziness of the holidays and begin to work again, I am experiencing conflicting emotions. The mental grind of the step I am on now–revising The Silent and Brave–is painful. My sleep is restless and run through by unfulfilled dreams. More than ever, I don’t know how I am ever going to break through the wall that exists between myself and my audience.

At the same time, I am consumed by excitement and ideas. Kim and I (and Bill) have done a tremendous amount of work on the sound booth, and so she is in a position where she has to get back to a regular rhythm of work again too. I think it is vital to have our lives around our dreams fixed and consistent, and they are. We just have to begin to work again. So that is something to be grateful for, that and each other.

When I sit down to work, it is difficult to get going. I feel mental constipation. Like life, the ideas are too confusing, the whole too big, the task too much. However, if I just sit down, and write a word, and then a paragraph, and then a page, I know I will get better. My strength and endurance will grow, my talent will smooth out, and it will become easier until the project is completed and something I can be proud of.

I think this is important advice for life as well as work. There will always be breaks, setbacks, complications. As human beings we will do silly things, bad things, things we can’t believe–but it is a wonderful thing to be able to put them behind us, and start again, and know that, unless we give up, we will never lose.