Writers come to the end of writing a book, and say it feels “like a kind of death”!

Artists finish a piece of work and get stuck, finding themselves without inspiration to move on.

A blogger comes successfully to the end of a month-long blogging challenge, and publishes nothing for the next month—or two, or three, or…

A quilt maker (me, the past two weeks) puts the final touches on a quilt top, packs away the sewing machine… and it might not come out again for weeks, even years!

You get the idea.

If you do creative work of any kind, maybe it’s happened to you.

You reach your goal, cross the finish line—and feel… finished! Too finished. What now?

The trouble with closure is how much it can close things: Doors, pathways, the mind.

How do you prevent the freeze that follows the finish?

I’ve read some good advice about this in recent years. I just forgot to apply it! Almost.

Nearly done with my patchwork project, and writing yesterday’s post about it, I suddenly remembered something important I hadn’t done, and needed desperately to do! Otherwise my big idea of upcycling scrap fabrics for good use was going to end right today.

What do you do if such a door is about to slam?

Get ahead of yourself! Run down the hallway of your mind and open a new entrance.

I once watched a fascinating fabric artist (Anita Luvera Mayer) explain her strategy for preventing such standstill: She always had three notebooks going: One for the project in progress; another with preparatory planning for the next project; and a third with more random clippings and samples inspiring daydreams for further down her “hallway.”

I’d forgotten this! And I knew the patchwork was about to screech to a halt!

So I paused in my final sewing of borders, and hauled out a bunch of leftover fabric from old endeavors: Greens and pinks, just because.

I scanned my sewing bookshelf to see what caught my fancy: This volume:

I brewed some tea and sat me down with this unread book that had been languishing for years in the shadows.

And it grabbed me! Intending just to skim for random inspiration, instead I got fascinated with the intricate art of good scrapwork placement. I started reading from beginning straight through, and my enthusiasm ignited.

What a dynamic art form! I might never do three-fabric patchwork again! What artistry in the way a true scrap quilt can draw people “into” it, and then mesmerize them with the varied fabrics’ interacting!

Author Roberta Horton likens the experience to her encounter with a house in San Francisco. From across the street, something about it caught her attention, then pulled her toward it, for closer inspection.

A large display window in front held the magic: varied teddy bears on shelves, facing out behind the glass. All different. She stood there feasting her eyes, looking from one to another, her view hopping all around the large window.

This, she says, is how we react to good scrap quilts. They draw us in and keep us looking, feasting on fabrics, colors, patterns, and combinations, as we would never do with a simple-graphic quilt of today. One glance at the latter tells us all we need to know. The scrap quilt is more like a treasure map that can hold our attention spellbound for some length of time.

She then explains how to achieve this phenomenon without patterns clashing or tipping the balance.

All this summons me on, to the next quilt possibility.

Admittedly, I’m late in the game. This done a week or so ago would have given me time to separate out fabrics and consider different patchwork patterns in which they’d work well. I may have even started cutting strips or rectangles and nestled them in their own basket, where they could incubate!

But I’m definitely not dead-ended.

So what shall I do to prevent blog freeze at the end of this month? Hmm… Another notebook, to carry around everywhere, and jot “things” down?

***

How about you? Are you dead-ended? Or headed for it soon? How can you prevent it by “going ahead” of yourself?

Happy endings—and beginnings!

*****

For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.

I’m happy to say my patchwork project I committed to hasn’t been lagging, like my blog posting seems to have done.

I’ve been tricking  myself into keeping on going. In both endeavors, really. Today I want to share some of these tricks with you.

My focus here is mostly creative efforts, but these tricks and similar ones work in lots of work projects, creative efforts, and even study obligations.

• break work into stages and segments
  • (I used this one as a teacher to help students overwhelmed with a whole page full of, say, arithmetic calculations to do. With a blank sheet of white paper I covered all the problems except one row–or, for some students, one problem!–so they could focus on the task at hand and see a manageable amount of work.)
  • with something like patchwork the stages and segments seem pretty obvious. You have to start by cutting out pieces or strips of fabric, then sew them together in different stages. It’s much more time-and-energy efficient to do all the cutting at first, then work in “chains,” doing the same level task repeatedly.

    

    

    

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  • You can use the same principle of grouping tasks in artwork. For instance, instead of putting a first layer of background on just one mixed media collage, you might do a bunch the same day, and have the beginnings of several projects “broken open,” inviting you to go on. You can do the same kind of grouping with second and third layers as well:

    

    

    

    

    

  • You can even do one big collage like this below, to be cut apart into segments later, each segment becoming a single collage, which gets more embellishment and some inspiring words. (I’ll show the eight resulting collages from this one in some later post.)
  • In writing, you might invent a bunch of characters at the same time, or do several 5-minute free-writes, responding to writing prompts. 
• limit yourself—time-wise, materials-wise, or size-wise
• quit before you hate what you’re doing, or are getting a backache or a headache—before you actually think you have to, or even want to. This will make you more eager to get back on task later
• Take regular breaks during your work session, usually after something like 20 or 25 minutes. This is the one I need to work on more. I get “on a roll” and lose track of time until I realize I already have a backache, or headache, or blurring vision…
• however, before you quit, or take a break, start a new segment.

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  • Some writers do a trick like this by starting the next sentence and leaving it unfinished before they depart their writing desk for the day, or a break.
  •  Some artists “break a new page” or begin a new layer in a collage/mixed media piece, leaving something waiting and beckoning to them when they next sit down to work. Just one brush stroke or a quote cut-out will do… the trick.

These are a few of the tricks I use to keep me going. Do you have any tricks you use? If so, please share them in the comments.

And kept on tricking!

*****

For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.

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I get up this morning and look at my “landing page” that contains my links to the 28-Day-Challenge posts already published. There they are, numbers 1 through 8:

1- A Fresh New Challenge
2- Start With “One”
3- Sabbath Soothing
4- Where to Go? and How to Get There?
5- How “Continue with One” Does Practical Wonders in Everyday Life
6- The Power of “One” for Spiritual Well-being
7- On God and Thwarted Human Dreams
8- Who’s Building the House?

But today is the 11th! That means I need three—yes, three posts—to “catch up” to where I “ought to” be—today! I get a slightly panicky feeling that I’m “falling behind.”

But I’m not.

I tell myself that, though I’m not that easy to convince.

I remind myself why I didn’t publish any posts on the weekend: I needed… the weekend! I needed Saturday to be Sat-to-day (and walk-to-day) and the Sabbath to connect more with God and rest and regroup. A lot’s been going on in my life besides my blog endeavor.

I didn’t stop because my head ran out of ideas. Quite the contrary. From the beginning it’s been swimming with so many thoughts of what I’ve wanted to write, even felt compelled to write, that they’ve been stirring around and bumping into each other in my head, and I needed this “shaken jar of river water” to settle so I could see my way through it.

I didn’t stop because I wasn’t getting any additional brain feed from elsewhere. I’ve gotten so much of that also, from several wonderful sources, without even my going looking, that I need to examine all that to sort it out and determine what to share in blog posts, and how, and in what order. And that would not have been the best use of the weekend, either.

Truth be told, the weekend itself fed in a number of new ideas and epiphanies, which means they stirred up the “river-water” again as they dived into “the jar,” and they now have to get sorted with the rest.

Settle, settle, so I can see…

I didn’t stop because I got discouraged. Everything I read and heard from the mentioned sources was energizing and encouraging. I just got overloaded. The overload is my brain-dump pile to retrieve treasures from, out from amid all the rubble–with plenty of both content and energy there for the whole month of February.

I didn’t stop because circumstances stopped me. Though circumstances do happen, and have to be dealt with. Like today’s…

It’s snowing, and I’m likely to be iced in tomorrow. So today’s the day I need to get out and get anything I might need in the morrow.

And the plumber comes at eight this morning, and the water will be turned off for the whole building for at least twenty minutes. And I’m not likely to get much productive writing done while he’s here.

So what do I do?

I tell you, my reader, all that. That is life. And I link you to some of the sources that have enriched me, so you can think about them, too.

The first one I happened on, some time ago, in the way of the everchanging YouTube home page. A link appeared for no apparent reason and caught my eye. I linked to it and watched this interesting and relevant video:

“15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management!”

In fact, This one’s so packed, I decide it’s the only link I’ll give you right now–or your brain might overload, too.

I might add, however, that the other links, which I’ll supply later, touch on principles presented in this video. Although the people interviewed here are “highly successful” in business, sports, the arts, and academics, the principles apply in any area where we seek “success.”

Enjoy! And be inspired!

I’ll be back later–today, tonight, or tomorrow early (my most productive time)–with more exciting stuff. And, hopefully, with some better, more settled, order in the excitement!

*****

For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.

***

Surprise!

The 28-Day Blogging Challenge list of writing prompts leaves Fridays open for whatever surprise word-prompt Kate Motaung offers for Five Minute Friday.

And just as I was finishing the last post, my email came through from Kate, with this word prompt:

“Build”!

I almost laughed out loud.

So I’d already written on the prompt before I knew what it was!

But I must add now that the first thought that popped into my head on seeing that word was “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Psa 127:1 NJKV)

Isn’t that the essence of what God was telling David, when this grateful human king wanted to build God a house?

When I looked up the verse that came to mind, to see if I had it right in my memory bank, I found it interesting, and rather entertaining, that the first words in it, preceding what I quoted above, are “A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.”

So this psalm is “a song of/by Solomon. How very fitting to follow the last post, because what I didn’t mention in it was that God told David that He would give the go-ahead for a temple to be built a for His name and His presence in Jerusalem, but David, the man of war and bloodshed would not be the one to build it. David’s son (Solomon, the man of peace, ruler in peacetime), would be the appropriate overseer of the work (2 Sa 7:12-16; 1 Ch 22:7-10).

I also found it interesting that when I used an online concordance to check the reference by entering the word “build,” the first verse that came up was about the human endeavor to build the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:4). They built it, but in vain, because God totally confounded the purpose for which they built it.

What “house” are you building? Who’s really building it, you or God, through you? Is your building going to fulfill its intended purpose, or is the laborer laboring in vain?

Some good questions to consider, regarding our human plans and endeavors. Some good questions to ask myself.

***

For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.

The reason I don’t have a blog post up for the 7^th—on the 7^th– is that I rebelled! Rebelled against my own inner bully, my inner hard taskmaster. The reason I rebelled is because of what God showed me in my Bible study passage for the week: About David and his thwarted desire to “build God a house.” About me and my own thwarted dreams and demolished desires.

2 Samuel 7

I’ve read this scripture passage before, many times, really. But it never hit me quite like yesterday— kind of like a Mack truck coming head-on.

David, now king, with his nation at rest from war, wants to build a house for God. He lays his eager plans before Nathan the (human) prophet, and Nathan, too, thinks, “Great idea! Go for it!”

But later, that night, God gets in a word about it. And Nathan has “ears to hear” what God is saying instead of just what he and another earnest human are thinking.

What God says is what I need “ears to hear” as well. Over and over again. Because this is the lesson that repeatedly slides away from me in the cackle and bustle and loud advertising of life.

Pay attention, as I finally sat up and did, to the words God said, and the way He said them (emphasis mine, because that emphasis explains so well why God sometimes lets our high and lofty plans get demolished):

Would you build a house for Me?

When  have I ever spoken a word about this to anyone, saying, “Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar?”

[Insert chuckles. Mine.]

God goes on, to put things into correct perspective. He points out…

I’m the one who’s going to build a house—for you, and all my people…

[according to my plan, which I’ve been carrying out all along:]

I took you from the sheepfold… to be ruler over My people.

I have been with you wherever you have gone,

I’m the one who has cut off your enemies from before you, who has given you rest from those enemies

I am the one who made you a great name.

[That’s the past. This is the future:]

Moreover

I will appoint a place for my people.

I will plant them, so that they may dwell in a place of their own and move about no more; nor the sons of wickedness oppress them any more as previously…

since the time that I have caused you to have rest

Also the LORD tells you that He will make you a house.

So there!

Well, David gets it! He sees God for Who and What he is in His beyond-the-universe enormity, in comparison with David’s own miniscule human tininess, and God’s enormous heart of grace and generosity toward tiny humanity! I think He’s kind of bowled over, breathless! And so he confesses (which means to agree fully with God):

Who am I, O LORD God?

And what is my house [here meaning family], that You have brought me so far? And yet, this was a small thing in Your sight. You have spoken of Your servant’s house for a great while to come—and this for a mere human! [or for mere humanity]!

Now what more can I say to You?

For You know Your servant

And for the sake of Your word [promise] You have done all these great things according to Your own heart

to make Your servant know them!

Bottom line:

Now, O Lord GOD, You are God, and Your words are true, and You have promised this goodness to Your servant. Now therefore, let it please You to bless … [as] You have spoken…

This is praying in God’s name (character), according to His word. This is a prayer of most blessed surrender–to God’s blessing: the kind of praying that I (and you?) need to do more of!

And the bottom-line understanding: that though God sees and appreciates our earnest desire to “accomplish things” for Him, what He wants from us is not our projects or accomplishments, but our hearts, our companionship, our close and grateful walk with Him. And when you stop and think about this, it’s astoundingly awesome!

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For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.