Surprising no one who knows me, I am currently having a hard time balancing my creative needs. I already chronically struggle with balancing my hygiene, mental health, social, and personal needs, so as I’ve said, this is not shocking or even especially interesting.
It’s just irritating.
This October, I took a break from visual art in order to run an online fanfic writing challenge. It was a daily prompt challenge, and it was for a small fandom, but I was incredibly happy with the number of people who threw their hats into the ring and wrote, even if it was just for one or two prompts, and absolutely ecstatic that there were some people who wrote daily for the duration of the challenge. Even more encouraging, there are some people clamoring to run another round of it this month or next (and, like, that is genuinely flattering, but I just do not have the spoons).
So now, on the back end of the challenge, having written 18k words in October and rekindled my love of writing, I return to visual arts — as I had promised myself — with a deep, deep necessity to find a way to balance my desire to write with my desire to draw, sculpt, collage, etc., and the knowledge that, yeah, that’s probably never gonna happen unless I make a very conscious, concerted effort.
There’s always going to be in internal conflict, I think, about what I could or should be doing at any given moment — I’ll be struggling with a particularly challenging painting and consider that maybe I should be writing instead; I’ll hit a roadblock in a personal essay and think that maybe it would have been more productive to have started a junk journal spread.
It’s just the way it is, I guess. Six years of a steady art practice means I don’t procrastinate the way I used to, nor do I really suffer from a dearth of ideas or inspiration. I’ve just never learned how to naturally divide my drive or attention cross multiple disciplines, so I just have to accept the fact that certain things will sit on the backburner for so long as my brain has decided to hyperfixate on certain other ones unless I make an effort otherwise.
So, this is me, making a conscious choice, as I promised myself, to return to visual art for the time being.
And this is me, recognizing that what needs to happen — what I really need to do — is start scheduling my creative time. Which, I mean, feels like kind of a drag, honestly, but if I have it within me to make a conscious decision about how I’m choosing to be creative — just not in the moment, that’s the problem — then I should do so. Make a spreadsheet or something and plan out which projects to work on and when. Maybe alternate writing and art, even diversify what kind of art I work on — maybe a week on a digital project, and then a weekend doing journal spreads, a couple of nights doing pyro work, a week of acrylic.
How do people with multiple hobbies and interests — the one of indulge frequently, as part of their, like, lifestyle, and don’t just dabble in sometimes — organize their time? Do they just go with the flow and allow whims to foster their creativity, or does prioritizing actually help them be more well-rounded in their practice and their creativity?
Oh, and I keep meaning to make time to read more, as well, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
I am also making a conscious choice not to buy myself too many thing prior to the holidays, but we stopped at our local Big Lots today and they were selling 12 packs of canvas board in both 8×10 and 5×7 for $4.99 each, so if you’re looking for some basic boards to paint on at a good price, go see if your stores are selling them. I bought two packs of each, totaling 48 canvas board for just under $20.
Anyway, I’m off to see if a spreadsheet is truly the solution to my problem.
Cheers, all.
All Your Crooked Heart 