I sometimes think the inside of my mind is a hot mess. All right, all right… I think that more than sometimes. Take yesterday for example. I finished up writing a short story in a 2200 word burst, then did a final read-over before closing the file to cogitate on it after a couple-day break. The call closes at the end of the month, so I have time for tidying it up. I tried to immediately segue back into the novel I’m working on, but it’s such a different voice that wasn’t working. Then a friend called and wanted to know if I was up for spontaneous lunch? Yes, that would be lovely! Not only could I shamelessly bounce my work off her, but it would get me out of the house and away from the personal issue of an anniversary day that was distracting me. Plus, I’d made a date with my husband for the afternoon. That was a fun expedition: estate sale. The couple was your typical Texan pair, from the looks of it: she adored Christmas and collecting all the knick-knacks. All of them. Him? well, he was an oilman, a reader, and a scholar. I haven’t seen that impressive of a personal library at an estate sale in a long time. I was very good, only four books came home with us (the one on top was my husband’s pick!). I went to the estate sale not for books, but looking for a blender. I’m going to make paper.

The blender was harder to find than I’d anticipated when I started building the supplies I will need to make paper. I had thought: I’ll pop into a thrift shop and there will be blenders. Five stores later… the only blender was older than I am and the sticker did not reflect that. Let’s just say it was more than half the price of a new one, and no, it was not one of those great vintage pieces built like a tank. Fortunately, I was correct in my assumption that the estate sale would have one. Next week, with grape leaves from my own garden, the papermaking commences. My plan is to make my own paper, make my own ink, possibly my own paints, make art, and… make profit? Unlikely, after all the time I’ll have in these pieces. It’s more than that, it’s the process from gathering raw materials all the way to the finished creation. Because I can, I suppose is the only explanation I can offer up for this project.

Later that evening, I was talking to my husband about the daily art prompt being a dragon with a crown. He said something about teeth, then laughed and hoisted his soda can at me. I decided this was silly enough it had to happen, and enjoyed the process of doing observational drawing from a reference object, complete with color-matching when I painted it, as I rarely get to do this for my work. Dragons don’t sit, you know.

A long day, in the end a productive one, with over 3K words written, and art accomplished, and the last piece in a project puzzle that I can assemble soon. Which doesn’t even cover the book I uploaded to KDP for the press after final checks of the manuscript formatting, and another book which is still in the formatting process got work done on it, as well. Finishing that one up today now that I have the blurb to go on the back cover.

Here’s the thing about self-employment. You are never off. Yes, you can take time off, but you’ll have to be deliberate and conscious about it. You’ll have to decide if you are going to switch your brain away from ‘work’ in whatever aspect that has to do with your ‘work’ or if you are going to carry a notepad to jot things down, or use an app on your phone for this, or… You can make those decisions, and no-one else can. You can also weave ‘work’ into play, in many cases. The date with my husband, driving to an estate sale and walking away with work equipment (I don’t think I mentioned the antique inkwell?) and research materials? Doesn’t feel like working, and yet, progress was made. My husband knew what I was up to, enjoyed the time we spent together, and aided and abetted me in it. We’re a team, which is joyful. My friend? Bounced right back at me with story nuances, and that got me to working out a complex little bit of inter-personal character interaction in a way that should resonate with readers. Also, we enjoyed good food and good company and relaxing for a couple of hours. I’m not saying you should be working all of the time. You should absolutely not. I’m saying to enjoy what you do, and find ways to make working pleasant to offset the hours you have to buckle down and push through when you don’t feel like it.

If you want to write, write. Don’t give yourself excuses like you haven’t done enough world-building, or enough research, or… Sit down. Write. If you want to make art? Make marks on something. Doesn’t have to be paper (and Lord knows, it doesn’t have to be handmade paper you crafted from your garden weeds), could be bark, or your driveway with chalk, or a wall. Don’t think you’re good enough? You can’t be until you’ve done this consciously, deliberately, over and over improving every time until you can do it in your sleep or on a morning with insufficient coffee, and it comes out like you were born knowing how. You weren’t. You make your talent. You are the special sauce.

Go forth, and give yourself permission to be a hot mess.