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 – just turn Morning Ink off, no need to fully unsubscribe!1
Had a wonderfully full Saturday, yesterday. Morning Ink (+ tea and The Archers), washing, shower, walk to Slad and back and taking about 5000 photos of autumn colours, finishing leftover lasagne, coffee and cake with friends, a bit of a dash round the shops, tidying the kitchen, Duolingo, a book festival event (Abi Daré, author of The Girl with the Louding Voice and And So I Roar), including bumping into and chatting with my youngest’s best friend’s mum, cooked spicy sausage pasta for all three of us, then watched Frankenstein with the fire lit and had a glass of birthday Prosecco and an ice cream.
I was reminded of the need to keep weekends free (from work) as much as possible. As a freelancer, there is a strong tendency to let work seep into weekends, and it’s obviously fine to go with this sometimes, but making it the default is problematic, especially as a creative freelancer, because you need inspiration of so many kinds to keep that spark and flow going.
Of course, cosy, quiet weekends pottering at home are also important. And, for me, when my main working week is filled with editing, weekends filled with illustration work are good, too. Variety is perhaps the ideal.
Still pondering whether and how I want to pivot my Substacking (see Friday’s Morning Ink post for more information, and a fun poll). For this week I’ll keep going like normal, but I might use my trip away as an opportunity for a break and a reset.
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