Welcome to Morning Ink, where I share my daily fountain pen drawing and whatever thoughts (sometimes none, mostly reasonably short, occasionally long and very rambling) jump out and onto the screen. If you don’t want daily emails you can toggle them off by going to Manage subscription. 1
I almost did a whole seven hours of work yesterday (six and three quarters). And it felt like a twelve-hour day. Because it’s deep, heavy, thinky work. And three hours a day of that really is the ideal. Four maximum. With a couple of hours of something lighter on top.
And yes, here I am yet again overthinking the ideal working pattern. One that allows me space and energy for all of the other things I want to fill my days with.
I had a not uncommon moment yesterday where I imagined me, having written the ebook that has been percolating in my head for a few years, on briefing freelancers. I was imagining people telling me how brilliant it was. And then I was imagining publishing companies licensing it and then asking me to deliver training to their staff and paying me ridiculous amounts of money to do so. Truly ridiculous amounts. Like a year’s income for one five-week course, of two hours a week and some feedback.
None of which is going to happen, of course. Not least because I will never havemake the time to sit and write the damn thing. But also because publishing is not a particularly highly paying industry and no-one is going to pay stupid amounts of money for training. Or ebooks.
I, of course, did the thing where I thought, ‘Oh, I can just write it while I’m away. And then on my next trip, I can edit it and create different versions for different customers.’
Because that’s what I think when I am going away… How much of the things I don’t manage to fit in during normal life I can fit into this fairly small block of time of being alone and having no responsibilities and no-one talking to me and no deadlines. Instead of how much downtime and relaxing and walking and reading and soaking up new streets and architecture and sitting on trains looking out at the scenery and listening to the music of conversations in languages that are not my mother tongue I can fit in. That’s what I should be thinking about.
If I want to create something like that, I need to make the time – and mental space – within normal life, rather than carving away essential downtime on an actual holiday.
Today’s drawing is almost a return to the start of this practice when I drew a page full of small drawings of things I could see around me. I invented the cup, though. I love inventing cups. Not that the one I am actually drinking from isn’t pretty.
It was nice not to draw birds today. Although I did have one of my flicks through the rest of the Morning Ink sketchbooks and a couple of ordinary ones and felt really really silly not to have done so sooner because there are birds in there that I should have been including in the pieces I am working on. Birds that are honestly much more interesting than the ones I have been drawing this week. To me, at least. Maybe the ones from this week are exactly what ‘the marketplace’ wants.
Thanks so much for being here. Your presence on its own is a joy, but I love to hear from you, too, so please do feel free to leave a comment. About something that has resonated for you in today’s picture or in today’s words. Or about something completely unrelated. Tell me about your morning, your creative practice, your particular work or life juggling act. Anything. If you want to go even further you can take out a paid subscription – if you’re happy to give me your postal address I'll send you some art of some kind in the post.
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