Long-time pen pal and inspirator (I think I made that word up) Sue AKA Smash - surprised me with this one. I LOVE it -- but I do not recall seeing anything like this from her previously. I love both he lettering as well as the design. I feel some appropriating coming on.
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I've mentioned Danny Gregory from time to time. You may sign up to get his weekly emails. dannygregory.com
He usually has something inspirational. This time is sounds like Danny is having an existential crisis. It's very long - and spoiler alert - it's a long dither about dithering. So, I am offering it as a random piece of writing because Danny is happy to have people like me provide some publicity for people like him. If your head is screwed on straight today, you don't need to read it. If you are dithering, you may read it and know that you are not alone.
I am not dithering today because I only have 4 days left to fill for the whole year.
Hi jean wilson,
I could sort of, maybe, use a new desk chair.
Mine occasionally decides to slowly ease me to the floor while I’m working. People on Zoom report watching me slowly descend out of sight as I talk.
It’s somewhat disconcerting.
So I spend some time online shopping for chairs, reading reviews, and looking at shipping costs.
I usually write in Scrivener, but is it the ideal writing app for me? I take notes in Google Keep. I like the markup capabilities of a new app called Craft. I spend some time reading comparison reviews of other apps. Then I subscribe to a podcast from Lit and Latte in which different writers talk about their process. I listen to half an episode while I start to make swatches of my new colored pencils on watercolor and drawing paper. I make a couple more swatches, then sharpen all my pencils and arrange them precisely according to the spectrum.
This reminds me of a cool Danish artist I might bring to Sketchbook Skool, so I open her page on Instagram, then start looking at people she follows. Every 4th post on Instagram is now an annoying ad, but then I click on one that shows me a new camera stand that’s kind of neat. Huh, I wonder if they carry it on Amazon…..
Soon the afternoon is gone.
The thing is, I didn’t intend to spend today buying chairs or downloading apps, or sharpening pencils.
I intended to spend it writing this essay for you.
Instead, I dithered.
Dithering is all about rearranging (or shopping for) deck chairs on the Titanic of my mind. Burning through the time allotted doing things that seem industrious and look like Work — after all, I do sorta need a chair, a writing app, swatches, etc., kinda. But they are all really just Procrastination, the slow cousin of Perfectionism.
And Perfectionism is the hardest-working sidekick of that voice in my head, the Monkey.
There are a zillion things vaguely adjacent to my dream, my creative goal, that the Monkey uses to keep me away from actually sitting down and making. And every day, there are new distractions, new websites, new TV shows, new products being shipped to new art supply stores.
Perhaps some are perfectly legitimate assets that can help me make better work.
But are they worth the time? Are they worth wandering off course and getting lost in the shrubbery?
It’s all about my goal. If an activity isn’t moving me towards it, it is dithering.
My goal is to write a lot and regularly. My other goal is to fill sketchbook pages. I feel so centered and accomplished at the end of a day of doing these things.
To reach that goal, I don’t need new chairs or arranged pencils.
I just need to dirty pages.
So I pull up a dining room chair, open Google Docs, and write and write and write.
When I have cranked out many good, bad or indifferent pages, then I’ll allow myself, briefly and only then, to browse fonts and try out different margin widths.
The Monkey doesn’t want me to reach my goals.
Because doing so might disrupt the status quo.
What if I write a whole book-worth of good pages? Then I might talk to my publisher, who might want me to go on tour and meet new people who will invite me to new things and expose me to new ideas, all of which could be risky and different and terrifying to this creature that would much prefer I just sat huddled in a blanket paging through hermanmiller.com.
Sometimes, I feel like such a weakling.
It takes energy, focus, a muscular core to stay on task and not dither. That can seem like hard work.
But writing or drawing gets me in the flow state, which energizes and makes me happy, whereas dithering leaves me feeling depleted, dull, and slightly ashamed.
It all comes down to a simple question.
What do we want to do with ourselves? How do we want to use that creative spark burning inside us?
Do we want to slowly smother it in crap and distraction? Or do we want to make something cool? A body of work, a completed project, a book, a show, something that makes us proud and happy.
Maybe you don’t have a goal.
Maybe your monkey has convinced you that you aren’t trying to be professional, that you don’t want to publish a book or open a store or have a gallery show, that you just like playing around with art, that my perspective is not for you.
Maybe your monkey has whispered so many dithering commands in your ear so often that you are lulled into a compliant stupor.
But I doubt you’d have read so far into this email if that were true.
I think deep down, you know that focussing and committing and doing will help you draw better or write more or get back to that dream you had at six or twelve or twenty or forty-four.
Dithering will just drain away your energy, your days, and your bank account.
Your pal,
Danny
