The curse of almost finished

I guess this is something we all know. – Or is that just me? I can gather up quite a force to finish a project. When I see that there is only like 20 hours necessary to finish a project, then I can add a night shift, really focus on a project going without checking email for hours,forget the time and sometimes even forget to eat, I go until I am ALMOST finished. All that is left to do is THIS tiny thing that doesn’t need extra effort. What IS left to do could be: be reading over the text one more time, adding that last image, assembling everything that I cut today, whatever.  The pattern is always the same. After an extra effort and at a moment when I am almost finished, and I feel that what is left can easily be done anytime. And that is the crux – when is “anytime”? It would be tomorrow as planned if there had not come in this urgent order of thread which I promised to post the same day. I say to myself: “It is o.k. to squeeze that extra thing in, I can finish that project anytime.” And then I have this new idea which needs a lof ot thinking and effort and is so much more interesting than performing the finishing touches of that project. And then, slowly, I realize that it has become another abandoned project. I am just not in the flow anymore. What seemed a few boring tasks at the time, a thing just needed to be done, has become a real task again, with thinking involved and getting into needed. And the worst is, when I realize the thing happening again and I still cannot stop it…

With 346 I am not quite down that road yet, and I hope I will be able to still make it. – I am almost finished now, I think, just a weekend maybe of concentrated work…I have admittedly not come any further with the writing of the Coptic binding instructions I was going to write. (My motivation to do so vaned with the recent VAT changes in European law regarding ebooks.) In the meantime, however, about 2 weeks ago, I was asked to design a D.I.Z. binding box for a small company (I’ll let you know more, when I know that the deal is on), and I decided to give it a go. – I am almost finished with 346 anyway, so I have the time now, no? I am feeling the curse of almost finished gathering force. Making the boxes in record time, including the writing of a 17 page instruction, the kids and I being sick in the last week (with antibiotics and all), is taking its toll. I am beyond tired.

But I finished the requested 5 sample boxes minutes ago. The printer is spitting out the last copy of the 5 sets of instructions, tools are bought and distributed over 5 boxes, leather cut, templates drawn, a sample book made (to include photos of the making), sketches drawn. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that those who will try it for that company will like it, and they will think their costumers would like it. – I have many more ideas for paper, print, and bookbinding related DIY boxes that I find to hard to do by hand on a 1-1 basis, but which could work great on a bigger scale. I would love to do some idea and design work for them – and they organize the production and distribution. Dreams…

Now I just got to keep the things going and really finish 346. I want to. My body wants me to rest, it says so very clearly. I do not want to go into whiny details of an old lady here. Anyway, tonight I am going to celebrate the finishing of the boxes. The photo below shows the prototype, the first blank book I made in a long while. I love that little thing. It is not fancy, but the leather is great, and it has a great, simple feel about it. Unfortunately it is already late and dark here, and photo, made with the help of flashes doesn’t do it any justice. Will have to try again in the next days.