A Plethora of Projects
and a spontaneous surprise for my subscribers
Lately I have had a lot to do. A plethora of projects, both personal and professional. But I’m not panicking. I’m preparing. Sort of. I really only said that because I wanted to use another “P” word.
I am not very good at preparing, unless you count mental preparation that ultimately morphs into procrastination more often than not. But like I said before, I’m not panicking. Panicking is not productive.
(Are you noticing all the “P” words? I promise—most of them have not been planned. I can’t say the same going forward, though.)
Anyway, back to my projects. I’ve written before about how I have a tendency to want to do all the things. I joke that one of my hobbies is collecting hobbies. I love to probe Pinterest and Instagram in pursuit of inspiration, whether it is for my dollhouse, my Animal Crossing island, or my picture book projects. This inevitably leads to me wanting to try something new. A crochet technique. A Lego build. A new poetic form! The list grows long. Perhaps I should use it to compose a poem! That would possibly be more pleasant to read than this post, as I’m probably getting carried away with the “P” words.
“Preposterous!” you say? Okay, I’ll keep going.
I don’t have time this morning to write a list poem with my pile of projects, even though I actually did prepare for this post by writing a draft in my journal. Other than that I had precious little writing time over the past week, as my husband had the time off, and we had plans! We went hiking, spent a morning at the zoo, set up a new fish tank, and spent way too much time prepping to spend a day at camp with a plethora of preschoolers (seventeen preschoolers, to be precise).
I did manage to get some other important things done over the past week, but only those for which I had a firm deadline. Now that I am back to my normal routine, there is plenty to catch up on.
To be fair, there was plenty for me to catch up on even before my husband’s week off. But I’m not panicking, remember?
I mentioned the fish tank and camp. The former will be a project that persists in perpetuity. The latter is a thing of the past (and the future, but not for another year). Other personal projects include (in no particular order): a crochet blanket that I’m making for my youngest grandson, curating a collection for the new church library, tending my ever-expanding garden, growing orchids and other house plants, leading a new women’s ministry at church, decorating a dollhouse, and making a fabric busy book for my youngest granddaughter for Christmas (it’s JUNE, so I really should be prepping for this now, but as is my usual pattern I’ll probably procrastinate until November). I also told my other granddaughter I would make her a dress with pink frogs.
Those things and more are enough to keep me perpetually occupied. But there’s work to be done too! I’m still working on my poetry picture book dummy, building my illustration portfolio (projects within projects!), querying publishers and agents, writing and revising various manuscripts, publishing this newsletter, and collaborating on two others (Read, Discuss, Do and Canopy Creatives).
That’s a lot!
And yet, I would love to make the time to regularly practice the piano, learn calligraphy, try new printing techniques, revise a middle grade fantasy novel, and finish that Christmas quilt I started a few years ago. Oh, and I still have to put the binding on the quilt I made with my sister.
One of the perks of having the type of personality that wants to do all the things is that I am rarely, if ever, bored. I can always think of something to do. I have been blessed with an active, curious, creative mind that seeks out new experiences and loves to explore possibilities. One of the downsides is that it can be challenging for me to stay focused on one particular project for long. Unless I get hyper-focused. Then I’m practically unstoppable (and I probably will be late making dinner). So I tend to skip around, hopping from one project to the next and then back and around again.
But I’m getting better at staying focused! Something that helps me is accountability. Inviting people into my creative process through things like collaboration, critique partnerships, connecting with fellow creatives, and even publishing this newsletter. Writing Snippets and Sketches each week helps me stay creative even in my busiest times, when I am too preoccupied with other things to have time for block prints, poems, and picture books. Because of this newsletter I’ve gotten more comfortable creating and sharing loose sketches, writing whatever is on my mind without worrying about being funny or profound (though both would be stupendous), and I have published this newsletter consistently ever week for nearly three years!
If you’ve been here for even a part of that (especially if you’ve put up with all the Ps in this post so far and are still persisting), I just want to say THANK YOU for sticking around for all of my scatterbrained, minimally edited ramblings.
I’m celebrating YOU with a giveaway. I was going to do a giveaway when I reached 500 subscribers (and I may yet), but instead I decided to thank all of my subscribers by giving you a chance to win a signed copy of one of my books! Winner’s choice. You can see information about all my titles by clicking the image at the bottom of this post.
For a chance to win you must be at least 18 years old, be a subscriber to Snippets and Sketches, and have a U.S. mailing address. To enter, leave a comment on this post (or reply to the email). I’ll announce the winner in next week’s post, so leave a comment before then!
Thank you so much for being here!
Poem: Cotton Candy
picking pieces of pink puff off a paper cone then dissolving them bit by bit on my tongue
Children’s books with “P” words in the title, because of course
The Adventures of Penguin and Friends by Jessica Linn Evans (wordless picture book series)
Pool by JiHyeon Lee (wordless picture book)
The Princess and the Grain of Rice by Tina Cho, illustrated by Honee Jang
Painting Wonder by Katie Wray Schon
Pumpkin Day for Boo and Belle by Laura Sassi, illustrated by Farah Shah
A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Chris Raschka (poetry picture book)
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (middle grade)
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale (middle grade)
This may be in my top 3 favorite Snippets posts. So fun to read!
That was plenty of Ps.