Slow is not always the way to go

How I'm hoping to be more consistently consistent

As I write this, my dining room table is covered with the drawer fronts and cabinet doors from the bottom half of my kitchen cupboards. Hubby has the next week off work, so I am taking full advantage of his time at home and have recruited him to help me get the cupboards painted before Thanksgiving! I had hoped that we would able to replace the countertops as well, but I’m happy with slow progress as long as there is progress. And painting the kitchen cupboards is a big step in the right direction.

Slow progress is better than no progress I often tell myself. And this is true, but sometimes this idea does get a little old. Slow progress is often the only progress for me with big projects, unless I have a deadline. And even then, it’s slow until I get close to the deadline, and then it’s into hyper-focus I go. When I’m there, I feel unstoppable.

As great as it feels, though, to whip up a newsletter at the last minute or finish a crochet blanket three days before Christmas, I would like to get to a point in my life where I am more regularly making steady progress on a project even with no deadline in sight and no urgent need to go into hyper-focus mode.

Take my most recent writing accomplishment, for example. Just the other day I finally finished a round of revisions on my historical novel in verse. It’s a project I could probably have completed in the spring, or for sure by the end of the summer. But other projects distracted me or I found excuses to procrastinate. It’s been the same with my snowman book dummy. I’ve been working on it for the better part of a year and only just got a “finished” dummy together last week, and that’s without the one spread of final art that I’m still planning to finish.

When I look back at when I was working on revisions for Mari in the Margins ahead of its publication, I see how much my consistency can pay off. I worked on it every day consistently like it was my full time job. And it really was. I want to be that consistent all the time. I want to spend my days writing in the morning and illustrating in the afternoon, with blocks of time set aside each day for related activities (such as marketing and querying). I’ve just got to figure out how to capture that consistency when I don’t have pressure from outside prodding me on. Too often I allow those things that should take up only a small block of time each day to suck my time away so that, at the end of the day, my task list somehow seems longer than when I started.

I’ve written in the past about how I often feel overwhelmed with all the projects and responsibilities I have. But even in my busiest week, with doctor’s appointments, birthdays, newsletters, a novel and a picture book dummy taking up my time, I often stop at the end of those days and wonder why on earth I didn’t get more done.

Why didn’t I write a poem like I planned?
Why didn’t I finish (or even start) revising that section of the novel?
Why didn’t I sketch out the next spread for the book dummy?
Why didn’t I get anything done? I was so busy all day!

It’s because I’m good at being busy, but not so good at being consistently busy with the right things. But you know something I’m good at doing consistently? This newsletter. I’ve sent out Snippets and Sketches every week for 118 weeks in a row. I also have a 185-day streak on Duolingo. I make my bed every day. And, most days, I read the Bible before I do anything else on my phone.

You know why these things work for me? Because I’ve made them personal challenges. And two things I’ve learned about myself and consistency are that I love a challenge and I hate breaking a good streak!

So, I just need a challenge. And I need to tell you about it so that I’ll actually do it.

I’m going to make a simple schedule for myself and, beginning when my husband goes back to work, I’m going to stick to it for TWO WEEKS. I can stick to almost anything for two weeks.

The basic schedule will be divided into morning and afternoon. Mornings will be for writing. Afternoons will be for art. I will work one hour into each day for things like querying, marketing, and other businessy parts of being an author and illustrator. I’ll work out the details later. Maybe I’ll even make a spread in my bullet journal for it!

In the meantime, I have a week of cupboard painting and Inktober mini-block carving ahead of me! I actually managed to plan the whole week’s worth of block print designs so that doesn’t take up too much of my time each day. If all goes well, hubby and I will manage to enjoy some relaxing time together too.

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The mini block print adventure continues

My character, Dexter, has followed something through the woods (see last week’s post) and into an aquarium, where his hunt takes an unexpected turn.

I hope you’re enjoying following Dexter’s adventure. Follow me on Instagram to see updates every day or come back next week to see the next installment!

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