Artist reality check: If this plan actually worked… would it really work?

Definitely feeling like this guy these days.

(I took this photo by the Pompidou Centre in Paris. These pigeons fly up and down this street all day long.)

It’s a big month for plant death at my house.

It’s beginning to dawn on me that I just don’t have enough light in my house for plants to get through the year. The last time I checked, I can’t rotate the earth toward the sun any faster. It’s also apparent that when I even look at one of my house plants they seem to wilt a little. Sorry guys.

So that’s a bummer.

I fall for it every year, thinking it will be a great idea to haul plants inside and keep them going until May, then out they will go again with a head start from all my winter love and attention. And every year we are all kind of suffering around each other.

In addition to tossing the worst of the plants, I’ve been cleaning and clearing out space.

They say when the inner world is chaotic, we crave order in the outer world. Yep.

I’ve been working on new courses, new books, new this, new that: Really these are all new attempts that start off fuelled by an optimistic mornings, then peter off into nothingness and frustration. Another day wasted.

I know I have the answers. Sort of. They say write it out. Even I go on about writing it out in the journal. But even then, sometimes I look at my journal with an accusing glare, “I know what you’re going to say.”

So when journaling doesn’t work… stillness.

Better to stay still and figure it out from there.

The funny thing is, staying still doesn’t feel like wasting time. Doing things that don’t pan out… that feels like wasting time. It’s not about not wanting to do hard work.

We all know hard work is part of the game.

It’s not the hard work. When I’m fired up on a project I will happily roll up my sleeves. I’m just saying that repeated floundering is getting old. Winter doesn’t help. Being woken every few hours by my kid also doesn’t help. (Seven and we’re still at this?!?!)

But you know, can’t blame the crowd.

I did, however, have a revelation during all these starts and stops. It might help you, too, if you’re creatively inclined.

I thought to myself that if this project I was working on was a success… that I sold every piece of art for the price I wanted… I still wouldn’t make as much coin as I’d like to make AND I would be very tired at the end of it.

Already tired. Check!

Ask yourself this same question: If this plan actually worked… what would really happen?

• A crafty friend of mine wants to sell quilts: She ran the math. If she sold the quilts for the market price, she would only be getting back the money she spent on supplies. The quilt was too expensive to ship. Ugh!

• Another friend is a sewing queen: If she stayed up late every night sewing her amazing aprons, and they all sold… she would make a little extra cash but not enough to pay for most of her time.

• In my case, I’ve been making a coloring book of Paris. Loathing every stinkin’ minute of it. I thought it would be a good idea, but a few pages in and I see the long road ahead. Then I did some market research, and the numbers were not good. THEN I imagined a big publisher contacting me and asking me to make a coloring book. My honest reaction was… disappointment.

That’s telling.

So the coloring book plans (for now) get tossed along with the wilted plants. There’s a parallel with flourishing and blossoming in there somewhere but I can’t find it.

There may be a time when the coloring book idea returns and I’m all in, but for now, I’ve got space and stillness, and that might be exactly what I need. After all, how am I going to get anything done if I’m busy doing stuff all the time?

Janice

PS Startlingly, people are still buying my 2024 Paris Planner. I shouldn’t be so startled. I myself am a multi-planners person, each with a different purpose: A planner for making plans (what I will do), a planner for recording abundance (what came my way), a planner as a commonplace diary (what happened). So if you are multi-plannered like me, get yourself a Paris planner. Plus… Paris Olympics 2024 is coming. Oh you are so au courant.