The question of when to leave something has been on my mind recently. When does a project end? When does a day’s work end? When have you done enough to feel proud of yourself?
I’m figuring out that you cannot decide these finalities once you’ve begun, especially in terms of a day’s work.
If I begin my day’s work without deciding when a good place to stop will be I’ve set myself up for intense feelings of disillusionment and unfulfillment. If I don’t decide what to aim for, I’ll be aimless all day and the day’s work will feel useless even if I did some good stuff.
Once I sit down I need to tell myself where I’m headed, otherwise it just doesn’t feel right.
I’m in a revision process for a project right now. It always feels like I’m in a revision process, but I definitely am right now. Moving freely and exploring is great for ideation, it’s great for being in the pioneer phase, but not for the edit.
In the editing phase I know where I am going. The characters and their situations are familiar to me.
The key to a day’s work is specificity. When is your day going to end? It could be 5:00. It could be at exactly five pages. It could be at a certain, specific point in the story.
Whatever works for you. But when you sit down in the morning, your first decision should be when are you going to stop.