This week I drew from the Poet Tarot deck a suite card from the Letterpress series. The Letterpresses focus upon completion. I don't know about you but this is a scary topic for me.
I suppose the discomfort or fear that comes with any conversation related to finishing any type of art project, including writing is that somehow getting said project completed is not always on our own schedule.
One of my favorite issues of Poets and Writers that comes out each year is the one with the debut writers. I think usually there is a dozen writers that have made their mark during the current year with a first major manuscript published. What I like about the issue is that it will have a short bio and then some information about the length of time it took to complete the work, but that is not all, how many times was it sent out before it was selected. There are exceptions but so many of these are in fact years in the making. I suppose if there is any comfort in these bios, it is that these people were generally not an overnight success.
Am I glad that it often takes so long? Of course not. But the truth also provides some comfort because if everyone was publishing overnight then of course I would be concerned that I was an aberration and that would be particularly discouraging.
The Seven of Letterpresses is clearly wanting to keep me focused on the norm. That is that from first conception until a piece of artwork or a poem or a collection of poems is completed takes time and we are best to not get too impatient. Any successes seem to be tied to a methodical work. Allowing the process to move itself forward, but knowing at the same time it will not advance at any certain pace, but at varied stages, The writer's clock ticks at a pace that only it can set. The only control that is left to us it that if we stop the project stops was well.
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