Done

[Ron. Lavalette]

     You know you’re finished as a painter when you look at your brushes, clean and neatly arrayed, and the thought of sullying them with paint is abhorrent to you; when the  dust and fly specks accumulated on the canvas seem sufficient to sending your message. 
     You know you’re finished as a writer when all you can find to write about is writing and, even then, all you can come up with is a stale critique of something you wrote a decade or more ago in someone else’s style.
     You know you’re finished as a singer when all you sing is oldies, sung halfheartedly and exactly as they were sung when you first heard and hated them.
     You know you’re done driving when you take your foot off the gas and admire the landscape’s new details.

     Sometimes you still wish things were different, but they’re not, and you know they never will be.
     You know you’re finally finished.

[Angela]

Maybe we are finished and just rest empty for a while, and then, later, we find something to fill us.  I don't know.  I hope that is how it works, anyway.

Important words.

[Bill Floyd]

Heartbreaking and scary (and lovingly wrought), but I will offer one observation: Plenty of artists get into stale ruts and then work themselves out of them.  Director Wes Anderson made the same movie about five times, then did a stop-motion cartoon and came back roaring; musician The Mountain Goats achieved perfection with primitive lo-fi recordings made on a boom-box, then went into a real studio and turned himself into a fully realized rock band; author David Markson grew tired of writing regular fiction and infused history, essay and fiction into something new.  Not trying to sound patronizing here, but nothing's finished unless we give up.

[Stephen Torelli]

You're making me reflect and hopefully, the phoenix descends. Splendid!  

[Joey Delgado]

Sure hope you this is not autobiographical, because you are an amazing writer as evidenced by this piece. Keep the words coming.

 

Great six.