Today I looked at the stack of folded papers on my work desk, sections ready for marking and sewing. I looked at the leather that was due to be the cover. I stood there surrounded by all the tools and materials… And it felt like I had never ever bound a book before in my entire life.

Maybe I’ve completed too many intensive projects lately. The natural rhythm of creating, with its ebb and flow, has become rushed and forced. I know, I’ve been there before too. Right now, I should take a few hours, maybe even days, to just BE with the tools and materials – without a defined target. That would melt the block. But I know how this goes. I try to press on for productivity’s sake.

Yet today – sooner than usual, I find myself drawn to various bits and pieces around the studio, off-cuts, remnants, forgotten beginnings. Random ideas appear in my mind, I go off on a tangent, testing, researching, developing – someone certainly could call it procrastinating. But my right brain knows what my work needs while my left brain is stuck on a time-table of shoulds and musts. A glimmer of excitement returns…

And whilst I momentarily gasp at the enormity of the next task, the reassuring thing about experience is the fact that I know every step of the journey by now. I know the pattern. And that means: this is yet another beginning.