The book Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thorton is another excellent find. “A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton’s entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture,” according to the book’s publisher. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s at the top of my wish-list. Read a review from The Washington Post.

Those are my two finds. I’m leaving the rest up to you. Your prime shopping date: Friday, December 5 – “First Friday” offers your best bet to buy art at the local galleries. Share your finds below…

Believe me, writing a book is no day at the beach. From the moment you move from the what- a-good-idea-for-a-book stage to the put-your-butt-in-chair-and-crank-out-the-pages stage, creating a book is much more about grinding it out than it is about experiencing the joy of creativity. When it comes to writing a book, inspiration is highly overrated—usually by those who haven’t written one. A book is a chore.

Okay, I hear you. If it’s so bad, why do it? Because, when it’s good, it’s very, very good. There is no high (endorphin, chemically induced or otherwise) that can compete with the euphoria that comes from writing a great sentence, paragraph, or page. Writing requires discipline, but once in awhile, you get rewarded for your efforts. And it’s those moments, individually and collectively, that keep a writer coming back to the task at hand, even on those days when it would be a lot more fun to dig a ditch than sit at your desk and try to figure out how to wring one more sentence out of your weary brain. Learning to do that, however, is essential to maintaining your momentum—once you start writing a book, it’s important to keep it rolling, like Sisyphus and that damn rock.

The key to maintaining momentum is to keep your mouth shut. When you’ve been writing professionally for as long as I have—more than 20 years at this point—one thing you learn to avoid is saying too much about whatever project you’re working on. Talking about what you’re writing diminishes the drive to write: it’s important to hold on to your need to tell the story on the page rather than in conversation, even if the story you’re telling is a nonfiction account of an institution (rather than, say, a harrowing account of your years as an undercover DEA agent). A story is a story and needs to be respected, protected and told in its own good time—the more you say while you’re in the process of discovering the story and how best to tell it, the less urgent your need to sit down every day and put another piece of it on the page (or laptop screen).

But now, for me, that urgency is over. Because my latest book—the soon-to-be-available history of the IMA titled Every Way Possible—is done. Having come to the end of the project, I can truthfully say that I’m glad it’s over. And I wish that it weren’t. There’s nothing more satisfying than writing a book—except maybe reaching the end of writing one. The process that has been both a burden and a pleasure for more than 18 months is finished. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labors—and those of my co-author Anne Robinson and the many people who helped us. We did our best to write a story that will both educate and entertain. For me, the real joy of writing a book happens when someone reads it. I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Every Way Possible—and when you’re reading it, remember that what you’re reading are the fruits of a lot of labor.

As far as I’m concerned, the hard work paid off: I’m proud to have helped develop, shape and create the first book to attempt to provide a comprehensive (though I would never claim definitive) history of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Let’s do it again in another 125 years.

Okay, two years probably seems like plenty of time if you’ve never written an institutional history before. But the truth is, two years is barely enough time if what you’re trying to do is provide a reasonably comprehensive look at 125 years in the life of a major museum, which is what those of us involved in the Every Way Possible project were charged with doing. And by two years, what I mean is that at the end of that time, there would be printed and bound books in hand—which meant, working backwards from that point, we actually had about 16 months (one year + four months, for those of you keeping score at home) in which to research, write and edit a 300-page book (as well as find, identify and write captions for more than 100 photographs). The rest of the time was dedicated to designing the book (no easy task in itself), then getting it printed, bound and delivered.

The fact that we accomplished it is a matter of pride for all of us involved. Furthermore, the fact that, in reading it through before it went to press, I discovered that what we had done was exactly what we’d set out to do—create a lively, readable history of the IMA—heightened that pride. It was no easy task, combing through 125 years of board minutes, letters, annual reports, and other documents, as well as talking with a variety of people who’ve been part of the IMA’s more recent history, with the intention of culling from all that material the type of information and anecdotes that would make an institutional history come alive.

However, what sometimes happens in the process of writing a book is that you lose track of your original intention, having become enamored of some new concept you arrive at—often as result of spending too much time mired in minutia that you’re convinced will be as fascinating to your readers as it is to you. Usually you’re wrong. And that’s when a book veers off course and becomes ever more difficult to steer in the right direction. Much to my relief, we managed to stay on course (after losing our way a couple of times), and in the end we did what we intended to do. (Quite an admission once you realize that authors are always the last to acknowledge that their books have any value other than as compost material.)

Here’s hoping you’ll agree when Every Way Possible, a history of the IMA, arrives at The IMA Store in December.