Fill your cup and take a break
on the precarity of freelancing, getting inspired and stepping back
First of all, if you’re new here (and there are actually quite a few new subscribers), welcome, and apologies, because you’ve joined just when I’m about to take a break! (see the end of today’s letter to read more about that). I write weekly letters in the areas of illustration business, freelance life and travel, along with sharing illustrations, new and old. Everything goes out for free, but paid subscriptions are very welcome if you enjoy finding my words or illustrations in your inbox. These letters usually go out on the weekend, and most often on a Sunday. I also write The Illustrated Plant Kitchen, which is a foodie letter with lots of food illustrations in it – those go out mid-week, mostly on Wednesdays.
Today I’m going to share a bit about spending a couple of days in the big smoke (translation = London) and how it filled my cup but also exhausted me. And the second half of today’s missive is about why you won’t be fully hearing from me from the rest of the month, at least not in the way you’ve been used to. (There’s also a bit at the end about ArtStack/IlloStack plans.) It’s actually a really long one. You’re probably getting a full month all in one go. So grab a cuppa and settle down (or save it for another day, if you prefer).
On the precarity of freelancing
Those of you who also work freelance will no doubt be familiar with the perennial dichotomy of how much work to book in. We had a very busy few months, and were both coming to the end of some long-term projects. This meant we had some leeway and didn’t immediately need to get booked to capacity, and that sounded good, really, after those busy months. (Chris also had his two-week trip to Japan booked in and definitely wasn’t going to be taking any work with him!) I then had a couple of jobs booked in that would both be compressed in time and between them would cover almost three months of what I aim to earn, and would give me plenty of quiet time in between. Perfect. Unfortunately, one of them fell through completely and the other had a significant part of it delayed until next year. We do still have the leeway from the extra work over the summer, but I had been relying on these jobs to keep that leeway nicely topped up, and now it means it may well get eaten up before the end of January. If I had booked more work in, then that would still have been there. But then if those jobs hadn’t fallen through, and I had booked more work in I would have almost certainly been at burning out point, because they were both planned to have some super fast turnarounds. Super fast turnarounds work when you have down time on either side. They are absolutely not sustainable full time.
I have kept myself busy drawing up a fair bit of marketing material for both businesses and will be sending out emails and posting on Linked-in to shout about our availability (both publishing services availability and my illustration availability!) next week. And I would really like a few little jobs before the holidays start. A small editing or proofreading job, a handful of PowerPoints to set, a couple of days of digital QA checks, one or two spot illustration jobs or a hand-lettering piece, or a book cover or full-page print piece. These would all fit nicely in, thank you. Feel free to get in touch if you happen to have something! (Oh, that does remind, though, that I also had a plan to create a page here with an offer for creating Substack illustrations and lettering for writers. So I’ll take some time next week to draw that up and provide some distinct prices and offers that are clear, because I know there are quite a few writers looking for that kind of thing.)
On filling your cup: getting inspired
But… instead of just filling my time with marketing and the like, I also used the opportunity to take myself away for a couple of days, fairly last minute. I’d spotted that The London Illustration Fair was coming up a little while ago but knew that I was going to be busy so hadn’t considered attending. But it came up again in my Instagram feed and I realised I was actually now free, plus there were portfolio reviews from Handsome Frank Agency on offer which sounded appealing and I thought, what the heck, I’ll go! I totally could (and quite possibly should) have just gone for one day and just done the Illustration Fair. But I decided that I would like to be more leisurely about it and try to fit in some other things, so I booked a hotel for Friday night (the New Road Hotel near Whitechapel tube and about 15 minutes walk away from the Illustration Fair – it was a really nice hotel with beautiful patterns in the hallways and had a good offer on when I booked, and they did a nice a breakfast, too, so I would definitely recommend it, and now that I’ve looked at their website, I absolutely want to get the room with the private hot tub one time!).
I pretty much loved most of Friday. I enjoyed the train up to London. It was a crowded train, but I had my booked seat and I read my book most of the way and drank my very sugary coke (I had just had a day of diverticular flare where I barely ate a thing and had a brief high fever so I needed the full-sugar hit; not something I normally indulge in these days). I made my way over to Brick Lane – going the wrong direction out of Liverpool station first, because that’s what I literally do every time I walk out of a train or tube station and then wandering through Spitalfields, which was cool. I then wandered up and down Brick Lane trying to work out where I was supposed to go, because I’d plugged in ‘The Truman Brewery’ to Google Maps. Once I looked again at the description and plugged in Dray Walk, I found it fine.
I headed into the Fair (up a lot of stairs – I didn’t see any indication of there being a lift anywhere, but really hope there was as it would not be a good thing if it were inaccessible) and first grabbed a cup of tea, so I could have a sit down. Then I had a wander round looking at a decent number of the stalls and thinking about where I would like to buy things, but planning to do my buying on the Saturday. I was carrying my heavy backpack round the whole time, as I couldn’t check into my hotel until 3pm, so that was both heavy and a bit awkward as the fair was really pretty busy. I sat and listened to a talk by Alan Male (Emeritus Professor at Falmouth and author of quite a lot of illustration books) about (I can’t remember the actual title of the talk and there doesn’t seem to be a list of the talks anywhere online) controversial and illustration and censorship. It was interesting and (intentionally) a bit uncomfortable and disturbing. And then I met up briefly with a couple of fellow Inky Goodness members, Libby Brewster (who writes The New Illustrator) and Jennifer Hines and did a bit more wandering round with them, and then a bit more on my own and then I headed off to check in to my hotel, getting to soak in a lot of street art and other cool things on my way.









I got settled into my room, which was really comfortable for me – it would be very cosy (aka a bit of a squash) for two, but perfect for me. There was no kettle in the room, but they had a games room with a pool table and arcade game at the end of the floor and with free hot drinks you could help yourself to, so I grabbed a hot chocolate from there and sat on the comfortable bed to decide what I would do with the rest of the day and evening. As I’d been feeling rough the day before, it would have been entirely justifiable to stay in the room and maybe grab dinner in the associated restaurant (while not the most ideal one for a vegetarian – Mr White’s English Chophouse –they did have a few nice-sounding vegetarian options) and just do some drawing and reading and get some sleep. But… I felt fine and had good energy levels, and I remembered that there was an exhibition at the V&A that I wanted to see and that it’s open late on Fridays and I also remembered that I’d said I’d really like to go to the theatre more often, so I thought I’d see what plays were showing. And I found The Duchess (of Malfi) at The Trafalgar Theatre (starring Jodie Whittaker), which looked interesting and I really like Jodie Whittaker. And I headed back out into London, via Whitechapel tube station, which took me alongside a market and shops that looked really interesting. Lots of beautifully patterned fabrics!
The exhibition I wanted to see at the V&A was the Great Mughals exhibition and it absolutely did not disappoint. I’m a V&A member so I could just walk in, rather than needing to book (V&A membership is a great deal – you get discounts in the shop, and I always buy something in the shop and you get into the exhibitions for free; there are usually a good few exhibitions I want to see each year so it works out just for them – I don’t have a plus guest membership). The art in particular was stunning, but there were also lots of decorated objects and some gorgeous tapestries and rugs. I had popped into the shop before going to the exhibition and thought I wouldn’t get the exhibition book, but after going round the exhibition, I absolutely had to have it to refer back to a lot, because it really inspired me in terms of room illustration and depicting everyday (well, obviously, not quite ordinary everyday!) life and also in terms of adding more people in and expanding a bit into bigger scenes (I’m thinking some shop interiors and markets and the like). It’s jam-packed full of inspiration and things to learn from and I absolutely love the compositions, the perspective and the maximalism – especially how much incredible decorative pattern is included. Oh, and the colours! Just bloomin gorgeous colours. This is an exhibition book that I will look at again and again and again. (I do have a lot of exhibition books.)








After that, I had a quick wander down to the café to see if I wanted to eat anything there, but nothing was calling to me. (Plenty I would normally like, but I have to careful what I eat after a flare-up.) So then I headed back to the tube and down to Embankment and then walked up toward the theatre, stopping to grab some fries in Five Guys (because I needed fairly plain carbs; pasta would have been better, but fries would do). And then went into the theatre.
I was really quite worried that I would fall asleep during the performance. The last time I saw a play (which I wrote about in Please take yourself on an artist date) I fell asleep loads, and that was in the middle of the day. This play didn’t start until 7.30 pm and the day after I’d had a low fever and after a very full day already. (I have recently been diagnosed as having severe sleep apnoea and am getting my cpap machine next week so hopefully this falling asleep so easily will not be a common theme in my life soon.) But there was absolutely no chance of dropping off, it seemed. It was incredibly gripping throughout. I have to admit not knowing much about the original play, and I also didn’t read any reviews in advance, just a few snippets on the theatre’s website, so it was all new to me. (I’ve since read some mostly not hugely complimentary reviews of the play, which I would entirely disagree with – but that’s, of course, not just me.) The first half was brilliant and gripping and had quite a comedic feel to it. The second half was incredibly disturbing and violent and someone behind me walked out they found it so disturbing and there were points at which there audible gasps and even murmurs of ‘Jesus!’ (I am pretty sure one of those came from my mouth, actually). Anyway, I thought it was a brilliant play and the actors were all really good and I was so glad that I made the choice to go.
And then I made my back to the hotel, on the tube and walking down multiple dark streets (all of them pretty busy, though) and didn’t feel at all anxious or nervous. I felt energised and even stayed up till gone midnight, talking to Chris for a while and then watching some Gilmore Girls while looking through the exhibition book and doing a little bit of sketching.
I slept really really well and loved the bed and kind of wished that I had booked two nights! I went down for breakfast and they had a small buffet and then a choice of included hot breakfasts and some extras you could pay for. I had a couple of pastries and some coffee and ordered sourdough with avocado and poached eggs which was very nice. (They also had a really good sounding vegan breakfast that I totally would have ordered, except that it had a lot of pulses in and I need to avoid pulses for a few days after a flare-up.)
Then I went back to the room and did a whole bunch of sorting out PDFs to possibly show in the portfolio show later, which was entirely a waste of time because there was really only time to show my web portfolio or slide deck and not the collated PDFs of the illustrated recipes and veg letters and pages from the colouring book I started ages ago and want to do something with. Not wasted, really, though, I supposed, because I want to use these for book pitches, so they’re ready for that, and just need a little write up, proposed contents and synopsis adding, so actually I feel good about that now!
And then I packed up into my now two bags because the print from the Mughals exhibition wouldn’t fit in my backpack and the exhibition book would have been too tight a squeeze, so they went in my big red tote that I’d brought with me. And off I toddled back Brick Lane and Dray Walk. And got there really early and they wouldn’t let anyone in until just gone 12 (I thought they would have let people going to the portfolio review in early, to be honest, but no). I wandered around the surrounding streets, a bit, which I appreciated, because I saw some more street art and some architecture I really liked – reminded me of Amsterdam buildings, actually. Once I did get in I had to go to the loo when I got in, so I got into the room after all bar one other person was there and they were already talking. And then we were there for pretty much two hours, rather than the hour and a half it was scheduled to be. Stuart Whitton (the Handsome Frank agent running the review) was kindly giving a lot of detailed tips to most people and going quite a bit over the time he was trying to set aside for everyone. The trouble, for me, was that I could only hear about every tenth word of what he and other people were saying, apart from the people on either side of me. Because the ‘room’ we were in wasn’t really a separate room, it was separated only by a thin curtain and there was REALLY REALLY LOUD music right behind me. I have severe issues processing conversation in busy spaces, but especially when there is music added into the mix. So I feel like I probably would have got a bit more from it if it were in a proper fully separate room.
And when it got to my turn, all my social anxiety really dug in. I frequently run meetings and do so very well, but when I’m not the running one, I find them really really hard (that is probably down to my particular flavour of neurodivergence). On showing my work, Stuart asked something (remember I can’t bloomin hear most of what he’s saying) why I draw what I draw. And I have a whole bunch of reasons that I talk about a lot everywhere, particularly related to my deep interest in ordinary everyday life, especially that of women and how room illustration and food illustration and lifestyle illustration in general feeds from that which all also feeds into the vast bulk of culture I consume – book, TV, films – and why I happily sit and listen to my friends telling me all about what’s going on in their life and only occasionally feel the need to reciprocate (circle back to that neurodivergence a bit, of course, but it’s a definite theme and fascination). And all I managed to say, amid a thousand ums and ahs was that I’ve loved drawing rooms since I was a kid and food’s cool. WHAT???!!!
I had questions, one of which, I did manage to ask. That was to say that I was trying hard to niche down a lot to focus on things where I can get SEO benefit and be found as someone who specialises in room illustration and food illustration. And I wanted to know whether he thought that was a good idea from an agent’s perspective. And his advice was actually to try to widen out a bit, but maybe try to do so within the niche. He said being a specialist and the go to person for a niche definitely can have its benefits, but being someone whose work can fit in different places is likely to mean more work. He suggested (for most of the people there, actually) to try to tick more things off within individual images – so for me that is likely to mean having more people in the room illustrations, it could mean adding more windows in the background showing other scenes outside, for example – to show buildings or nature and so on. He did also suggest taking a look at trying to make sure there is a focus in a piece (or that there isn’t an accidental focus).
For example, in this image, the red walls in the dining room draw your eye there which might not be what is wanted (indeed, definitely not the intention).
I think that’s a definite thing to look at with my room illustrations. Because usually I’m trying to have a tonne of different things and not one focus. But I should make sure, if that’s the intention, that there aren’t any accidental focuses, but I should also aim to draw some room illustrations that have a definitive focus – because those would of particular use in advertising and brand illustration (which tends to pay more than books). Another suggestion (related to showing more things in one piece) was to try adding some of the lettering onto the room illustrations, which is an interesting thing to look into doing. I will take a look through and see if any of the existing ones lend themselves to any (someone suggested ‘Merry Christmas’ on the one above), but also consider intentionally including some in some of the new pieces I create.
I had planned to go back around the fair and buy the prints and other items I wanted to buy, but it was soooooo much busier on Saturday and after two hours of being in a room trying to listen intently and also spending some times in some severe social anxiety, I needed to get out. Plus, I had booked and paid for another exhibition to visit and I didn’t have much time to get there – the Medieval Women exhibition at the British Library. So I rushed down to Liverpool Station and then down to Kings Cross St Pancras, where I had a momentary feeling of sadness that I wasn’t going to jump on a Eurostar. I even had a momentary feeling of ‘Oh, damn, I don’t have my passport with me.’ What? Was I actually considering just seeing if they had any last-minute cheap fares and popping to Paris or Brussels for the rest of the day? And then rushed round to the British Library – I almost went the wrong way but then realised it and turned right instead of left.
This exhibition was nowhere near as successful (for me) as the Great Mughals one. I think this was largely down to having hit overwhelm and it being very very busy and very much a follow-this-line exhibition. (I remember really struggling with a Matisse exhibition in London close to a decade ago which was set up in a similar way, I think because of the expectation that it will be very busy and you got timed tickets – you had to just follow the line and couldn’t really stop and take a moment or really get stuck into a particular exhibit.) It was very very busy. I ended up reading the big overall descriptions and then just jumping forward to any free exhibit and therefore missed quite a bit. But also there were too many words for me and not another art. The Great Mughals exhibit had a lot of art, but also a much freer setup that you could explore a whole room at your pace, rather than being pulled and pushed along because of the people in front of and behind you. I also didn’t feel it was telling me enough about ordinary women – it felt like it was much more about queens and nuns and so on, though there was a fair bit about women’s part in medicine. Because of all of this I rushed through the exhibit. I may well have spent more time if it were less busy and different laid out, but also not a Saturday, which I think may well have led it to be busier. I did not buy that exhibit book – I took a look and it did not have enough pictures for me! And I wandered a bit around the British Library shop but, again, it was just too busy. I had definitely had my fill of crowds.
So I headed to Paddington, even though it was a while until my train. I considered getting the one before, but I didn’t have seats booked and it wasn’t direct. So I went to get something to eat and ended up in the Frankie and Bennie’s round the corner. Not somewhere I would normally go, but they had macaroni cheese on their menu and that was exactly what I needed. After that and an ice cold milkshake from Café Nero, I got a seat right by the departure boards (that never happens) until I could board the train. And it was another good journey back. Not too busy this time, and I had my seat, and even didn’t have someone sitting next to me at all from Didcot. By this point, my bag was really hurting my shoulder and the walk home from the station (by the way, I love walking out of Stroud station now at night and seeing the beautifully renovated The Stroud lit up and looking so welcoming – I would kind of love to stay there one night, though I feel that’s a really silly thing to want to stay in a hotel in the town where you live!) was really really hard. I was so glad to get back and that Chris had put some beer in the freezer for me because I said I really wanted a cold beer. And, after a brief pleasant chat with one of my kids (by the way, I am intentionally very close about talking about Chris and the kids, because they are the owners of their online lives not me; not because they aren’t a huge part of my life and very very important to me) I completely and utterly vegged on the sofa watching Gilmore Girls episodes and only doing a teeny tiny amount of drawing.
On taking a break: stepping back for December
I will be taking a Substack break for December (apart from today – I actually forgot that November only has 30 days and thought this would be the last Sunday in November, not the first one in December – oops) to wind down from what has been a fairly intense publishing schedule for the last few months.
Since staring The Illustrated Plant Kitchen, I have been writing two newsletters a week, one here on a Sunday and one there on a Wednesday (ish, sometimes the days changed!). But, more to the point, I have also been drawing two newsletters a week. TIPK usually takes a lot of drawing, where this one takes more writing, though I have now built up a library of vegetables and other foodie spot illustrations that I can reuse. I had also taken to hand-lettering most headings in both spaces. Which I really really love doing. But it takes quite a while. (Notice that I have not done this today.) While the ideal would probably be to make a font or three from my hand-lettering (and that’s actually something I would really like to do and may very well explore next year), what I think I need to do in the more immediate future is create a library of letters, too, so that I can much more easily put together those headings (if, of course, I decide to continue using them).
I have found the accountability of a defined schedule really helpful, and having some paid subscribers really gives me extra motivation. But I have also found that they are tending to take up a lot of time. The newsletters here on Illustrated Life* can take me up to a day to write, depending on what I’ve picked to write about. If I’m going deeper into something and sharing a bunch of things like the Discoverability for Illustrators post a couple of weeks ago, it can take quite a while. Even the ones where I’m just blurting out the random ditherings from inside my head will usually take close to half a day. I think the quickest I’ve managed is a couple of hours, but that’s very rare, especially as I almost always draw or hand-letter something, if not lots of somethings, for each post.
So, I plan to take December to think about how I want to be showing up here. I’ll be using the time that I usually spend writing each week to journal and ponder and plan for what my Substack presence will be next year and how much time I will be consciously devoting to it and also how I can both integrate it with my website, because I am realising that my old blog posts on my website are really really useful in pulling people to my website and not putting new things up there is wasting that. I went through a period of hosting my portfolio elsewhere and linking to it from blog and then realised it actually really needed to be on my website instead of someone else’s platform. And by getting so deeply into Substack, I have been doing a similar thing. Taking people away from my website. I’m not in any way planning to leave Substack, by the way. I love so very many things about being here, even while some things and some changes are less comfortable for me. But I am being reminded a lot about the need to grow my own actual space on the internet, outside of others’ platforms and that space is www.tashagoddard.com not Illustrated Life. So I really need to fold into this rethink making sure that there is a conscious integration with my main website and a way to feed back and forth between there and here.
In addition to that, I want to work out how to use Substack more, in the way I have over on TIPK, to give myself accountability and motivation to produce actual artwork and especially artwork that can be pitched as future author-illustrated books – or self-published as zines or full books, perhaps. Using Substack to push me to create the passion projects that call out to me. And those passion projects include some that are only writing focused and not just author-illustrated non-fiction.
But there’s also a lot more that I want to write about that doesn’t so easily or specifically fit into illustration and I don’t know if that should happen here, in brand new substacks or off Substack, including things related to being a midlife woman, my exploration and deepening understanding of my own neurodiversity and various thoughts about feminism, politics and culture in general.
Some possible ideas I’m pondering…
reducing the frequency to either once a month or twice a month on both publications and alternating (e.g. so I might publish here the first week of the month and on TIPK the second week of the month)
using this publication as my base and then setting up even more newsletters (I know, that sounds like a ridiculous idea when I’m talking about how I’m finding Substack is taking up too much of my time, but…), with just monthly publication schedules and that build the book pitches I am or want to be working on and/or focus on a writing topic I personally want to explore
sticking with the weekly schedule, or even increasing it (again, I really do seem to be leaning far too often toward creating more work for myself, which is a perennial theme in my life), but including planned short posts that do things like share older work, with one short paragraph about that piece and nothing more, or repost an old blog post from my main site (or from the old parenting blog) with minimal updates or edits, or round-ups of what I’ve been reading, or other things that can be created in less time, especially if I’m planning for them
and a whole bunch of other ideas rolling around in my head that I need to explore and think about carefully, because whatever I decide to do and however I want my Substack and overall web presence to evolve next year, it needs to be something that is sustainable during really super busy periods as well as quiet ones.
* Oh, and that’s another thing – I know I only recently changed the name, but I don’t think I can have looked hard enough because there is someone else writing a publication entitled Illustrated Life, and now I’ve made this space almost invisible, when this should be the main one – now, The Illustrated Plant Kitchen comes top if you search online for Tasha Goddard Substack, and the only thing you see of this space are some notes and chats. So this publication is very probably going to change its name again! And I might just make it Tasha Goddard, because that makes sense URL-wise, and in a lot of ways it makes sense from my own perspective, too.
So I will see you in the NEW YEAR and maybe with another NEW NAME! (I’ll still be reading and probably writing ‘Notes’ and so on and it’s also possible I won’t be able to stay away for a whole month, but in theory you shouldn’t expect your next missive from me until January.)
Some old posts to explore while you’re waiting
Last year’s post about wanting to hibernate – which I think is a bit what shutting down for December is about:
On my desire to do everything:
Versus my recent attempts to dig in and niche down:
Some travel- and digital-nomad-related posts:
And some illustration business ones:
Or just take a scroll through the archive and pick something that grabs your fancy.
ArtStack/IlloStack Zoom chat
For those of you who were interested in contributing in some way to and ArtStack/IlloStack, I’ve set up a Zoom call on Tuesday at 5pm GMT. Please come along if you think you might like to get involved or even just give your thoughts on how it could work.
I know this time won’t work for everyone, both in terms of time zones but also in terms of work and family commitments, so if you’d really like to get involved but would need a different time, please do say so and we’ll try to have at least one more call at a different time.