Luckily, I’ve had a lot of practice with that. At this point, it is my 15th year of doing music, which is kind of crazy. I remember the first record I turned in, and I was asking myself all the time if it was done or whatever. It was great, but in retrospect, when I listen to things or look back, I’m like, “I should have done this differently.” Things like, “This is mixed weirdly.” Those are the types of mistakes you don’t notice in the moment, but that’s how it has to happen. You have to be a little bullheaded about it, a little stubborn and delusional, so the vision just sort of happens.

When I’m exhausted with it, you know, when my obsession with the thing becomes diluted and I want to do something else. [Or] having created a sufficient mess… where I can’t add anymore, I need to peel back. And then, of course I am lucky enough to have an editor, to turn a project loose and then we’ll go from there. It’s different for every project. No book that I have written has taught me how to write the next one. I feel like a baby every time I start a new book. Like I’ve never done this before, and I have to figure it out from scratch each time.

I’ve been teaching myself to use pen and ink, like dip pens and ink. I’m getting to a point where I’m comfortable. I grew up looking at a lot of etchings, and it’s a little dream to be able to draw some of those etchings, so that’s what I’m doing, trying to teach myself. But there’ll come a point where I’m like, “I’ve got to leave this alone or I’m just going to screw it up.” And it looks done or quite often I’ll ask my wife what she thinks. I’ll be like, “What do you think?” And she’s like, “Don’t do anything else to it.” I’m like, “But I really want to do this.” And sometimes I’ll listen and sometimes I won’t.

Sometimes it’s about time. When the completion is dictated by some kind of deadline-based condition, then I feel like I know it’s done when there’s the right balance of things in the work. Sometimes that means having to remove a chapter or a figure or a whole set of ideas from the work because there wasn’t enough time and space for all of those things to be treated with equal sensitivity and care, or because keeping every element in the mix would obfuscate or dilute what was at the core of the work. To help me arrive at a state of “doneness” or resolution, I do have a few people that I trust and share my work with. You have to be able to take criticism, ideally from comrades and colleagues whose values are aligned with yours. It’s not just about what it looks like, but trying to understand how a project can help me evolve larger guiding principles.