'Completing' Stage of Creative Process

I’m typing from my little unit in Archer St, North Adelaide. My partner Greg will join me in a couple of days.

He has four days of meetings where all the district presidents of the LCA (Lutheran Church of Australia) gather for important discussions and planning for the future of our church.

I am in Adelaide for the weekend to begin my second half of the training to become an accredited leader in InterPlay.

The night before I left Perth I delivered 4 large paintings to the ‘Zakir’ Indian restaurant in Midland. I hope I can sell something. I could use the money right now. 

I was acutely aware of the anxiety I felt, especially as I worked toward a deadline complete them before I went interstate. I just kept fussing and fretting, unable to finish!

Dr Eric Maisel came to my rescue. He explains in one of his newsletters the need to have confidence through all stages of the creative process and ‘Completing’ is one of those difficult stages. 

He says at some point you will be near completing the work. 

It is often hard to complete what we start because then we are obliged to appraise it, learn if it is good or bad, deal with the rigors of showing and selling, enter into the void of being without a new project, and so on. The confidence required during this stage is the confidence to weather the ideas of appraisal, criticism, rejection, disappointment and everything else that we fear will be coming our way once we announce that the work is done and the confidence to actually be finished.

Now I see why I get myself all wound up! But I weathered it, finished them and delivered. Phew!! Now back to the drawing board with my other ideas.