Have you ever heard the phrase “keep your nose to the grindstone?” That’s been our February. We have fought through grindstone persistence to get trough a crazy amount of work and play. We’ve had so many events, just got back from NYC, had some family in town for a long weekend, are moving my wife’s office, and finally got approval to move forward with cleaning up and demolishing our garage from Hurricane Ian. Yeah, remember that guy? So, it’s been a lot. It’s very tiring but we’re getting a lot done. I look forward to a break…someday soon.
Drawing from the Well
Book III Edit I is done! I hit a burst of desire to edit and plowed through the end of it. I just finished last night and it feels so good. With some time put in last night and this morning, I managed to compile all the pieces FINALLY into a single document. There are copious notes to parse through to start making adjustments before I get into the main list of editing to-do’s. And, of course, the big push now is going back to Book II and put in a few fixes there to get it ready to go to the editor before the summer. It’s getting exciting!
Filling the Well
Reading was great these last two weeks in quality if not quantity. The first finished book was Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. It contained the short story that inspired the movie Arrival. That was phenomenal, obviously, but everything in this collection was great. And I FINALLY finished Dreamlander. Like Behold the Dawn by the same author, it was a slow start, but it took a sharp swing up in how interesting it was. By the end, I couldn’t stop reading. It was outstanding. Now, I’m reading Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, a classic, and Surrender, New York by Caleb Carr. He wrote The Alienist that I read back in high school that opened my eyes to murder mysteries. His are fantastic and Surrender, New York does not disappoint.
This week, I’m going to depart from TV because there’s no change (Law & Order and Madam Secretary) and talk about music I’m listening. I’m a big metalhead, which often comes as a surprise to people. To that end, one of my favorite bands, Periphery, has a new album (their sixth full studio album) coming in March: Periphery V: Djent Is Not A Genre. They’ve released three tracks so far and it is blowing my mind how good it is. This has sent me into a tailspin of listening to their entire discography on repeat. It’s been a great ride and I can’t wait for March!
Well Chat
So let’s get into this idea of “grindstone persistence.” As I stated above, this grows out of the adage, “Keep your nose to the grindstone.” This is basically saying that as much as the world tries to grind you down, you push back against it. Life is like this a lot, especially when you have a lot of competing ideals. Work, family, friends, traveling, hobbies, business, creative pursuits, and the demands of a home can all collect together in a perpetually spinning wheel of stone. For grinding. A grindstone.
Why is that a good thing? A grindstone is used to sharpen blades and tools. It grinds the edge down to its finest point. This make sit more effective or, in the case of swords and knives, more deadly. The idea of putting your nose to a grindstone (however horrific as an actual idea) is to sharpen yourself to make your own efforts more effective.
Using a grindstone, however, is an effort unto itself. It takes time to work the dull edge to something sharper. The same is true for all our pursuits in life. And when they pile up, it takes persistence to become sharper rather than being worn away to dust. That means that grindstone persistence is the act of keeping on keeping on when the going gets tough, especially if it’s really tough. It’s becoming the weapon against all that is against you, the tool to work through it all.
The last month has been that for me. It has taken mountains of persistence to get through the battery of events we’ve had going on both personally and professionally. And we’re not through yet. We’re getting closer, but the end is not yet in sight. So we buckle down and keep pushing through. We are persistent in our efforts. And when it’s done, we’re going to be one heck of a collection of weaponry.
How do you get through the hard times? Sound off here or at my social media handles linked in the images below.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG