When you’re in the middle of a project making a mess is a symptom, not a problem.
There’s paint on your clothes because you’ve been painting. There’s ink on the table because you’ve been printing. There’s sauce, and herbs, and a strange liquid on the counter because you’ve been cooking. There’s dirt and clippings on the floor because you’ve been gardening. Your manuscript is a wreck because you’ve been writing.
What’s more, a mess can always be minded. Putting stuff back, wiping down a counter, cleaning the floors are all annoying, yet manageable tasks.
A fate much worse than making a mess, is being so concerned with cleanliness that we never follow the spark. A fate much worse than having a to-do list filled with dirty work is refusing to start a project because we dread the grime we’ll have to eventually wipe away.
If we can manage to belief that cleaning up our mess should be among the least of our worries, we’ll learn how to pursue our projects even if, in the end, we’ll have to a spend some time tending to a list of annoying, yet manageable tasks.