on getting to the 

finished product:

sometimes you need unconsciously to let your mind consider an idea. you have to consume one idea so that the next idea comes.

miuccia prada

Begin whatever calls to you.

If you get quiet, and turn your thoughts inward and listen closely you can hear
a small voice calling you.

Follow that voice.

Sark, Living Juicy

Today is the first day of Spring.
Storm Row Studio wishes you space 
for new beginnings. 

 A Note Re: Our Inner Editor

"Don't reinforce its power by listening to empty words. If the voice says, 'You are boring,' and you listen to it and stop your hand from writing, that reinforces and give credence to your editor. That voice knows that the term boring will stop you dead in your tracks, so you'll hear yourself saying that a lot about your writing. Hear 'You are boring' as distant white laundry flapping in the breeze. Eventually it will dry up and someone miles away will fold it and take it in. Meanwhile you will continue to write."

Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

revision pens

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, 

"and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Behold the revision pen.  

An excellent marker of progress.

 

Grey for the first full read-through.

Green for the second.  

Then orange for the third.

Sometimes, with so many notes in one color, 

the favorite pen won't make it to the end 

and a (worthy) replacement is called in.

Sometimes nibbled, always worn down to a nub, they remind the writer that stroke by stroke, pen by pen, progress is being made.

And after a dignified performance, the old pen 

is retired (and recycled) and a new pen, 

in a new color, awaits the 

next round...or the next manuscript.