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Priorities, mindfulness, and productivity: an update

September 10, 2012 in Everyday Life, Writing | No comments

A few weeks ago I laid out my writing priorities. My life felt disrupted, I hadn’t been writing, and I hoped hashing out what was most important would help jumpstart something. Since I plan on doing more freelance and blog writing in the future, I decided I wanted to prioritize blogging over my other projects. Armed with a clear idea of where I was headed, here’s what happened:

I wrote more

Let’s face it: this summer hasn’t been 100% kind to me. July was swallowed up in some weird health stuff and, though I vaguely remember the month happening, I was in no condition to get any writing done. Even though I’m feeling better now, recovery from a serious interruption like that is slow. It has taken a while to get my head back in the right place. I still get tired enough that I can’t go to work, keep myself clothed and fed, and be amazingly prolific with my creative work.

Despite all that, I’ve still gotten more or less back on track with blogging. I credit this to having put my priorities in writing. When I have a little extra time or energy to devote to writing, I’m not spending it all sitting at my desk trying to figure out what to work on next. I’m asking myself, “have I finished a new blog post this week? No? Okay, that’s what we’re doing right now.” With that burden lifted, I’m free to write as much as I’m able.

My priority list has impacted my time on a larger scale, too. When I sit down at my computer, I only play games if I’ve gotten my other work done first. Making my priorities explicit means I’ve made a commitment to myself. If I don’t at least brainstorm some post ideas for the day before firing up World of Warcraft, I’m not honoring that commitment.

I had more ideas

Taking a cue from the social media fasting article I posted last week, I decided to sit down and generate new ideas every day. Now, mind you, aforementioned personal situation made that a pretty unrealistic expectation. However, I now have a file with over 40 solid ideas for future posts. Creating new ideas is a skill, and it’s one you only hone through practice. The more I sit down and commit to writing at least 10 ideas on the page, the easier new things come to me and the more connections I make.

I created a Mix Tapes & Scribbles Facebook page

As I had more ideas, I realized some of them would benefit from putting a question out to a group of people. I had considered creating a Mix Tapes & Scribbles Facebook page before, and that tipped the scale. I am certainly not the biggest Facebook fan out there, but if I can get enough people to like the page, I can start some great conversations. With that said, you should definitely become a fan.

I submitted to another blog

Not only did I focus more on my own blog, I trimmed up an essay I am particularly proud of and submitted it to a blog I like. Then I created a special file folder just for pending submissions and decided I should put something new in it as often as I can. Once I have a few blog posts in the can, I may decide to dust off one of the many half-finished short stories and essays on my hard drive.

I felt satisfied and productive again

For some, an extended period of rest is a welcome respite from life’s demands. I can’t stand it. I get restless and irritable and eventually I’m just overwhelmed by self-loathing. I was definitely ready to get back into the swing of things, but I didn’t yet have the energy to set my own direction every time I had a few moments to write. Setting clear priorities took away the hemming and hawing over what project I felt most strongly about and kept me working consistently on the same thing. Consistency bred more finished products, which in turn made me feel like I was getting somewhere in life again. What a relief!

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My Week at Home: The Beginning

September 21, 2011 in Career, Everyday Life | 1 comment

office photo

My professional work space. Not doing too bad with dual workstations, a window, a big desk, and an awesome office mate.

Yesterday marked the first day of the work week…for everyone but me, that is. I’m trying my hand at this new trend they’re calling a “staycation.” I have a list of projects, enough coffee to hold me until Friday, an empty house, and…myself. Despite my anxiety on Thursday — my last day in the office for roughly a week and a half — and some unexpected challenges, the week is progressing surprisingly well.

I’m excited to take on some major home improvement projects, but I’m also trying my hand at something bigger. See, my long-term plans don’t necessarily include a 9-5 job. Like a lot of folks with art degrees, I fantasize on and off about liberation from outside pressure: moseying down the hall in the morning to write fiction over a cup of coffee in my sunny home office. Leaving town for a week of on-location photo work without worrying about accrued vacation time and how this might affect the trip we’re planning with friends next winter.

Working full-time is stressful. Sometimes I come home and all I want to do is curl up on the couch and watch My So-Called Life — pushing myself to be creative seems out of the question. So you’d think I have it made, right? Because when it’s time for us to add a +1 to our household, I’m planning to quit my job and become a full-time blogger, writer, photographer, and mother. I am incredibly fortunate to have a loving partner so able and willing to provide for our family in this way.

The thing is, though, I love my job. I love working. I love it so much more than it has ever worn me out. When I was unemployed for all of four weeks in 2007, I went stir crazy and asked to start my new job early after barely a week at home. Going to work has been a consistent source of pride, fulfillment, routine, and social outlets for me since age 14.

Most people savor time away from the office. I can’t get enough of the structure, the schedule, the interdependence, the quick thinking and problem solving. I love feeling challenged. I love feeling instrumental.

Maybe that’s why this week is going so well. I have clear goals. I know there is more work than there is week. I’m making tangible progress that I’m really proud of. When I work hard on the house, I also feel like writing. I’m finding a balance.

I can’t wait to reflect on everything I’ve accomplished at the end of the week. I hope I’ll look back on it and see it as a strong affirmation that when it comes time to manage my own life and break my tether to the office (at least for a while), I’ll be opening the door to huge creative successes. I’ll still have something exciting and engaging to talk about at cocktail parties. Instead of feeling desperate to return to work, I’ll feel energized to lay out a roadmap and make my own goals happen.

demo in progress

We’ll see. Right now I have a room full of broken plaster and possibilities, and it’s just a matter of seeing where the week takes me.

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Analog Girl Also Loves Gadgets—Baby Steps Toward Smartphone Love

January 21, 2011 in ADD, Everyday Life | 5 comments

You probably know by now, Verizon announced on January 11 that the iPhone is coming to their network, with preorders starting February 3. The arrival of the iPhone on my network of choice—and with it the legitimate (difficult) option between iOS and Android—gave me the nudge I needed to answer a question I’d avoided for years: do I actually want a smartphone?

The idea of being so connected makes me a bit uncomfortable, which I attribute mostly to age. However, I have my answer: I will be one of those February 3 early adopters. The iPhone announcement came at a perfect time, as I’ve been traveling a lot and internet access has been spotty to say the least.

Polaroid Decal for iPhone

A different kind of analog love: Photojojo's Polaroid iPhone decal

My generation inhabits an interesting middle ground in terms of social media. I remember life before Facebook, before Web 2.0, even before the internet. I remember when cell phones were “bricks” and calling plans never cost more than $9.95. When I turned 16, I didn’t want to be one of “those people” who owned cell phones, but my mother made me get one to keep in my glove box in case of emergency.

Social media isn’t in my DNA, but I’m no dinosaur, either. Web 2.0 really started to explode during my undergraduate career. Midway through college, Facebook began to surface at universities across the country. I started a LiveJournal account freshman year and chronicled my angsty journey of self-discovery. I bought a cell phone with a camera in it (a big novelty at the time).

Fast forward to the present, where I get paid to (among other things) use social media. I write a blog that I take pretty seriously, and I want to maintain it consistently and reliably no matter what.

Maybe it’s this one foot in, one foot out relationship with the virtual world that gives me such conflicted feelings about smartphones. A recent report in the Chronicle of Higher Education claims that today’s college students are “hooked on social media and cell phones” and experience withdrawal symptoms like “anxiety, misery, and being jittery” when isolated from gadgets and the internet. Unlike these students, I still need to feel a concrete, human connection to friends and family—something social media and text messages ultimately can’t sustain.

Two iced lattes

Sorry, folks. If you really want to get to know me, you'll need one of these and a couple hours or so...then rinse and repeat.

But I digress. As a creative person, someone who hates talking on their cell phone, and an adult with ADD, I think smartphones have amazing, life-changing potential. I’m just afraid of getting hooked. I want to make sure I spend dedicated, regular time actively not caring about Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, or my mounting list of unread items in Google Reader. I want to shut the gadgets off and connect with a good friend over a cup of coffee because those connections are ultimately what matters. Basically, I don’t want smartphones to eclipse analog forms of fidgeting, thought, and observation.

But on a normal day, I’d love to be able to moderate comments at the bus stop. I’d love a pocket-sized tool to help me stay on top of my job, my life, and my creative aspirations. This year I want to test and review several organizing and goal-setting apps because I think doing so could help a lot of creative people with ADD or who just struggle to stay organized and goal-oriented.

There’s virtue in occasionally stopping the flow, for sure, but not in putting down the tool. I tried to tell myself I didn’t want to succumb to smartphones’ inevitability, but truthfully I can’t wait for my iPhone to arrive. Smartphones afford us an unprecedented capacity for collecting, collating, storing, and redistributing data. In its proper place, and in moderation, I expect it will be an excellent tool for me, and I can’t wait to share its effect on my learning, creativity, and personal goal management.

How about you? Do you have a smartphone? What are the implications of owning—or not owning—one of these crazy gadgets?

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So This is the New Year…

January 3, 2011 in Everyday Life | No comments

If you haven’t noticed, Mix Tapes & Scribbles has taken a holiday break. I had a mind to announce this, but decided I would just make sure I kept posting over the holidays instead. Instead, here’s what I’ve experienced:

  1. Watching the last Broadway performance of Rent before leaving for Christmas (not even in the same class as the movie version, folks).
  2. Traveling to PA for a whirlwind four-day weekend of Christmas festivities.
  3. Singing with my dad, cousin, and the church choir on Christmas Eve and experiencing four-part vocal harmony for the first time.
  4. Finding out that yes, if pressed, I can still play the piccolo proficiently.
  5. Getting good at the drums in Rock Band.
  6. Spending two days trying to fly from Baltimore to Los Angeles, including some really exciting foul-weather landing attempts and an unexpected overnight stay in Houston.
  7. Finishing my wool wrist warmers and beginning to knit an afghan.
  8. Taking a lot of photographs and feeling inspired to write.
  9. Seeing Black Swan at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood..

I’m sure there’s more, but during this crazy adventure (which remains ongoing—I’m still in L.A.) I haven’t had much blogging time in my days. Not to worry, I’m working on a new piece of writing about it all and once the dust settles, I’ll have a lot of fodder for the blog. Until then (i.e. until the weekend), posting will be light.

However, I have another artist feature in the can and I’m going to leave you with a short list of resolutions for 2011. These will return with some friends in an upcoming post about goal setting/management, but for now, I’d like to do the following in 2011:

  1. Write a script
  2. Finish my novel
  3. Be in a flashmob
  4. Learn a dance
  5. Submit to six literary publications
  6. Write and feature more guest posts

What do you have in mind for the new year?

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WordPress vs. Blogger: Thoughts Anyone?

December 22, 2010 in Uncategorized | 4 comments

I’m currently spearheading an exciting project at the office: guiding our organization through a major website redesign. For a well-established, not-exactly-small non-profit with a limited budget, collating and meeting everyone’s needs is harder than it looks!

I ended up deciding to use WordPress as a content management system and combine our website and blog into one pretty unit. Hopefully the new site will launch by late February.

It seems like this solution is going to work well for us, and it got me to thinking about Mix Tapes & Scribbles (I consider this sort of learning/experimenting a major perk of my job). I’ve been waiting for a Blogger iPhone app, but I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s never going to exist. WordPress not only has an app for convenient, manage-and-moderate-anywhere control, it would let me return to self-hosting as opposed to redirecting my domain to Blogger.

Disadvantages include having to maintain my own platform again (I did this before with Movable Type) and being tempted to get overambitious with customizations. Also, Google rules the data mining and indexing world, so having them host the blog does very well for search engine results.

In the end, switching to WordPress could give me a much more attractive, easier to manage home for Mix Tapes & Scribbles, but just like the Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux argument, there are no clear answers.

So I turn to you, Dear Readers, and ask: have you had any experience with Blogger, WordPress, or even switched between the two? Have you used the WordPress app on your iPhone/iPod/iPad? What do you have to share with me?

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New Direction and Call for Artists!

October 7, 2010 in Life & Work Artist Interviews | No comments

Last week, I started to wonder aloud about my direction with this blog. It has spent over a year in its baby stages, and I feel like it’s ready to branch out into the world.

Since I launched it in July 2009, Mix Tapes & Scribbles has been about my creative journey, and what it means to live in the world as an artist. For me, this has meant exploring different mediums, finding my true calling, balancing distractions and self-doubt, and realizing my true calling could change on a semi-annual basis if it felt right.

Moving forward, the blog will still chronicle this personal journey. However, I’d like to open it up to feature other artists’ journeys as well. Rather than talking about the “art scene” and what important shows are happening, these artists will be people like me: people who may have changed media, people who have struggled, people who love their work and have had to make tough decisions between art and job and family. Everyday artists who wander the world creating meaning every day.

Before launching this portion of the blog, though, I want to gather a critical mass of features and interviews so I can actually keep a reliable schedule.

Here’s where you come in:

I’m seeking visual artists, actors, and writers (there is some flexibility there) who aren’t exclusively supporting themselves with their art. In addition, I’m going to make sure I dedicate a percentage of my features to artists whose work centers on LGBT issues. Interviews would be done online, so geography isn’t an issue. I’m looking to explore the interplay between life and art, what keeps us going, and how we do our work.

Sound like you or anyone you know? Please drop me an email at mixtapesandscribbles [at] gmail [dot] com or leave me a note in the comments.

(Edit 10/18/2010: a number of people seem to have gotten the impression I am looking exclusively for artists with an LGBT focus in their work, which is not the case. While I am putting that out there to make sure they are always represented in my features, I’m seeking writers, actors, and visual artists of all stripes.)

I’m really excited about this new (or expanded, really) direction for the blog. My real and true hope is to have enough interviews ready to go to launch it in November, but we’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted!

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t close out this entry by saying thank you to everyone who already reads Mix Tapes & Scribbles and supports me with comments, emails, chat messages, etc. There’s no way I’d still be blogging without you!

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What’s It All About?

September 30, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Within the past week, I’ve seen two plays. As a result, I found myself wanting to resurrect my onetime identity as an arts and entertainment writer, reviewing shows I see in my corner of the city. That led me to wonder whether such reviews would be a worthwhile addition to my blog, which brings up my most dreaded question: is the blog about what I want to say, or what readers want to read?

I shut down my previous blog, Words + Images, because it became a chore. It stopped enriching my life. A couple months later I returned to blogging with Mix Tapes & Scribbles, which has followed a much more freeform posting schedule, featured more personal topics, and chronicled my creative journey more than regular happenings in the art world at large.

I sacrificed hit counts, opportunities to represent the Baltimore art blogging community, and probably some other perks I haven’t even considered. But I firmly believe that a blog takes years to establish, and this one has way more potential. Why? Because it’s genuine.

However, I still haven’t answered the question: how much of blogging comes from a marketing mindset? How much should writers be considering their target audience with every word they write? A recent post on Write to Done states:

Every post you write should satisfy a core desire for you and deliver a real benefit for your reader.  If you are simply writing to satisfy yourself then purchase a moleskin notebook and write away.  But if you want to blog publicly then you owe it to readers to deliver real value.

I think I first need to find more blogs on the creative process—how creative people live. Then I need to figure out where I fit in, even if it doesn’t change my end product at all. This sentiment springs from the old adage: you can’t create art in a vacuum. Any artist is responsible for knowing who else is producing similar work, and we should be able to compare and contrast them intelligently, as well as explain our own work succinctly.


On that note, do you know anyone else who blogs about the creative process? Whether you’re the type who likes to email feedback to me or post it in the comments, please let me know if there’s something I should be adding to my reading list!

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