The Joy of Doing What you Love
Photo by Anna Bass
"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you....a joy!"
~Rumi
One day last week I had a nice long phone chat, “talking shop” with a fellow book editor. My sister and I are in the final stages of preparing her manuscript for a handful of what we call beta readers—people who have agreed to read an advance copy and give us helpful feedback and suggestions.
Books take a long time to finish, and it’s hard to write in the same style (what writers call “in the same voice”) from one chapter to the next. Since I’m copy editing the book, I’m looking at consistency across chapters, and I had some questions for my friend about the types of checklists she uses in what I call the “mop up” stage. We were geeking out about the resources we use—style guides, grammar guides, etc.—to ensure that the words and formatting are as they should be.
My guess is that most readers have no idea what goes into the completion of a book beyond the writing of the first draft. My friend and I were both surprised at how long we had talked about the various tasks involved. But isn’t that how it is when you’re discussing shared interests with someone who gets just as amped about the topic as you do? And doesn’t it feel great?
When he was in college, my son used to tease me that I wrote the equivalent of term papers for a living. At the time he couldn’t imagine doing anything less fun, although he has since turned into a very good writer himself. But I love all things writing: blogs, essays, articles, and especially books. In my younger years I used to be a professional seamstress, and to me the creative process of starting with an idea, assembling all the individual parts, piecing them together, and adding the finishing touches, feels so similar. In both cases you go from imagining something in your head to holding it in your hand after an enormous amount of effort.
I use the term “effort” loosely, because for me it’s more like play, although obviously some tasks are more tedious than others. This week I’ve gone through all my old follow-up emails to my sister about the book to make sure we’ve included every idea we had talked about in our weekly calls. That part was tedious, but even then, there’s the satisfaction of knowing that each concept we add makes the book more complete.
My friend and I talked about how we get excited to wake up in the morning, knowing that a manuscript is waiting for us, mainly because we know our contribution makes it that much better. Having developed our skills over a very long time, it feels good to put them to use. It’s important to honor an author’s words and yet make suggestions that enhance the overall impact of the work by smoothing the language, adding definitions for clarity, and transitions for ease of reading. Editors go by the physician’s oath of “First, do no harm.” The trickiest part of the job is conveying to the author why changes need to be made. Words are precious, and egos are fragile. The highest compliment an editor can get is when someone tells the author that the book still “sounds just like them” after the edit.
In positive psychology, a flow state, sometimes known as being in the zone, is “the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time,” according to this wiki article.
This perfectly describes my state of mind when I’m in the zone while editing. My hubby can go to the gym in the evening and pick up some groceries, and upon returning to the house, find me in the very same spot I was in when he left. The house is often completely dark because I haven’t lifted my head up from my laptop to notice that the sun has set. Which results in his gentle chastising of “Honey! It’s dark in here!” I always resolve to do better, and then…I don’t. You can’t mess with flow.
Even though the topic we get overly excited about is different, I’m sure we all understand this phenomenon. Most of us have the need to do a deep dive on our favorite topics at times, and recognize the euphoria of being in the zone. It’s even better when we have someone to share it with.
My siblings and I are all kind of geeks—but we enjoy very different types of activities: politics, education, engineering, caregiving, entertainment, even farming! One of my brothers loves woodworking, and has just completed making a roll-top desk by hand. No easy task! My sister-in-law makes the most exquisite quilts, which she works on every evening. She says she can hardly wait to get through dinner and dishes so she can head down to her sewing room. I can relate. Fortunately, in my family we all recognize this need in each other and at least feign interest in each other’s topics. It’s nice to have simple hobbies or activities that make us happy, and people who support our “habits.”
We are our most authentic when we’re engaged in doing something we love. Something that speaks to the call of our soul. The world is better for all our creative contributions, no matter how weird people think we are for being so enthusiastic about our compulsions.
Geek on!
Affectionately,
Elaine