The Secret to Creating a Body of Work

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in one fell swoop, seemingly out of no where and at a gas pump, but that is how these things seem to happen. Sudden bursts of insight and clarity rarely happen when we are actively waiting for them, but at the gas pump, pumping gas, watching numbers roll by, suddenly — boom! Epiphany.</p><div id="1be3" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/ursula-k-le-guins-advice-to-me-on-writing-ca68650d6446"> <div> <div> <h2>Ursula K. Le Guin’s Advice To Me On Writing</h2> <div><h3>“Write your truth”</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*gBsIwHqG6cM52lAh2Otrmg.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="d527">I knew in my body what it meant. I also understood that it was a long project I was embarking on. I didn’t know if I would be able to do it because I knew it wasn’t going to be the most prosperous thing to pursue. The subjects that seeking and subsequent literary body of work would be centered around were not exactly going to be super accessible and wildly popular. But they were where my heart and interests had settled themselves.</p><p id="97c1">I could feel in my bones the amount of work that it would take. That it would be a marathon, layer upon layer of research, writing and understanding leading to more layers of the same until it developed into a wholeness: this body of work.</p><p id="a10e">But in this moment it was as though I had time traveled and could feel the finished product, as though it had landed on me fully, before collapsing back into its seed form. It was up to me to in

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cubate and care for it as I pulled it through to fruition.</p><p id="921c">I am now in my 60th year. I had the interesting moment at the beginning of the 2022 New Year: the moment when I realized I had done it. It was the two ends of a continuum meeting. I realized I had written 8 books. I had done it.</p><p id="7390">I had created a body of work. It took me thirty years.</p><p id="aced">I tell this story to people now because I want them to understand that some things take a really long time. And they are worth it.</p><div id="b354" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/little-epiphanies-or-virginia-woolfs-moments-of-being-942d34826e9b"> <div> <div> <h2>Little Epiphanies or Virginia Woolf’s “Moments of Being”</h2> <div><h3>Transcending the Self</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*AsQKqQDSQ-QN82uZ46eI6g.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="8450">Some things don’t. Some things are quick, fast, exciting, out of no where, all of the sudden, but other things — they take a long time. And that is just the way it is. Some things need slow plodding. Other things need us to sink into them for a very, very long time.</p><p id="7f4a">This is a message to any of you who are on the slow plodding curve, to tell you that you will get there and it will feel good when you do.</p><p id="48c5">It will be a true and worthy accomplishment.</p><p id="dfc5">So ground yourself into whatever exploration you are undertaking and keep on going.</p><p id="d570">©Theresa C. Dintino</p></article></body>

It takes time

Currently, this is one of my favorite stories to tell. It is the story of me when I am thirty or thirty one. My daughter is a very young child, like a baby, and she is sitting in her carseat in the back of my Honda Civic wagon. I am standing at a gas pump, pumping gas. I am leaning on my car watching the numbers move, telling me how many gallons I am pumping and therefore how much money I am spending when suddenly, a thought drops into me. It literally drops through the top of my head and into my belly where it then becomes an overall feeling and embodied understanding.

It isn’t only a thought but a fully loaded directive from me to me: “I want to create a body of work.”

At this particular point in my life I was already a writer. I had written one novel and many short stories and articles. I was trying to figure out what was next. I was working as a waitress in my husband’s restaurant while contemplating the big questions: What is my life’s goal. What do I want to focus on? Accomplish? Work toward?

This is what came to me in response to all that inquiry and soul searching: “I want to create a body of work.”

I don’t know why it came to me like that in one fell swoop, seemingly out of no where and at a gas pump, but that is how these things seem to happen. Sudden bursts of insight and clarity rarely happen when we are actively waiting for them, but at the gas pump, pumping gas, watching numbers roll by, suddenly — boom! Epiphany.

I knew in my body what it meant. I also understood that it was a long project I was embarking on. I didn’t know if I would be able to do it because I knew it wasn’t going to be the most prosperous thing to pursue. The subjects that seeking and subsequent literary body of work would be centered around were not exactly going to be super accessible and wildly popular. But they were where my heart and interests had settled themselves.

I could feel in my bones the amount of work that it would take. That it would be a marathon, layer upon layer of research, writing and understanding leading to more layers of the same until it developed into a wholeness: this body of work.

But in this moment it was as though I had time traveled and could feel the finished product, as though it had landed on me fully, before collapsing back into its seed form. It was up to me to incubate and care for it as I pulled it through to fruition.

I am now in my 60th year. I had the interesting moment at the beginning of the 2022 New Year: the moment when I realized I had done it. It was the two ends of a continuum meeting. I realized I had written 8 books. I had done it.

I had created a body of work. It took me thirty years.

I tell this story to people now because I want them to understand that some things take a really long time. And they are worth it.

Some things don’t. Some things are quick, fast, exciting, out of no where, all of the sudden, but other things — they take a long time. And that is just the way it is. Some things need slow plodding. Other things need us to sink into them for a very, very long time.

This is a message to any of you who are on the slow plodding curve, to tell you that you will get there and it will feel good when you do.

It will be a true and worthy accomplishment.

So ground yourself into whatever exploration you are undertaking and keep on going.