“When then cat shit gets bigger than the cat, get rid of the cat.” — Some studio executive
Choppiest sleep I've had in a long time, after weeks of less-than-ideal sleep. My smartwatch has given me a score of 53 with the notice “needs attention.”
Historically, I've always been a pretty sound sleeper, so I'm quite positive that this lack of sleep is coming from my biological alert system, the internal chemicals that tell you to stay on your feet and maintain caution. Our bodies are after all hardwired to be ready for danger. Experience passed down from one generation to the next over hundreds of thousands of years. That kind of experience does not lie.
“Write the good bit. Seriously. Just write it. That bit that you want to write, that you’re saving up? Write it. It’s the most important moment in the book, isn’t it? So write it, and bend the rest of the book towards it, rather than retrofitting it to what you come up with along the way that’s less important.” — Nick Harkaway
A book I attempted to read in my early 20's but never quite got into has been on my mind lately: HOW TO BE GOOD by Nick Hornby. I turned to it on the strength of Hornby's other immensely popular novel, HIGH FIDELITY, but despite the enjoyable writing style, I found the subject matter of divorce to be way far removed from where I was at the time. Now that I'm going through a divorce of my own twenty years later—one that is getting evermore sour by the minute—I am considering taking another look at Hornby's book, because I remember its take as being fun and humorous, which is a miraculous feat if the developments of my own divorce are anything to go by.
Attempting to codify how my week goes as well as pinpoint areas that could use improvement. The thing I'm proudest of the most is managing to maintain a regular exercise routine; everyday at noon. I've also managed to incorporate a morning walk 3 days a week (which doubles as my grocery run), in addition to the bike ride to and from my former place of residence to care for my son 4 times a week (that ride will now be 5 times a week though as he's just started soccer practice). It should be noted that a typical day clearly does not end at 7:00 pm. More like midnightish, but the 7:00 to 7:00 is the part I feel requires the most structure.
The things I'm not entirely proud of: 1. Only two days a week for writing/drawing, amounting to no more than 8 hours in total. Presently, this is the time I dedicate to working on THE SOLAR GRID which explains why it is moving at such a slow pace. Not entirely sure how to carve out more time for it when I also absolutely need to block out time to handle things like: other art stuff, fulfilling online orders, email, and accounting on top of newslettering and social media posts.
Would really like to make blogging a daily habit too, just one post a day if I can muster it.
Need to work in some time for website updates, which I haven't done in a very long time. Best if worked into the weekly routine to avoid updates becoming this big time-consuming ordeal.
Reading; Right now I read whenever I can steal a moment. It works alright, but I'd prefer a more codified timeslot.
Meal prep: I'm terrible at figuring out a good meal-prep routine. I cook every night of the week, and it does take it its toll. Need to figure out two days a week where dinner prep is intended for 3-4 days' worth of meals, but also need to come up with the sort of meals best suited for that kind of lifestyle. I enjoy devising scrumptious dinners—sometimes elaborate—a little too much.
I try to reserve the majority of Saturday as a “Day of Rest” if I can manage it; Soak in a bath, shave my chest, clip my fingernails, that sort of thing, but it rarely works out that way if I'm being honest. This Saturday I'm attending an art talk and also a birthday for example. The first half of Sunday is mostly about spending quality time with my son. Following that, there's only really enough room to cook dinner, tidy around the house, do some laundry, and get ready for the week ahead!
Finally got around to taking some glamor shots of Sim Kern's THE FREE PEOPLE'S VILLAGE. which I was very honored to design the cover(s) and endpapers for.
Sim Kern's THE FREE PEOPLE'S VILLAGE release at Brazos Bookstore the other day went superbly well. It was a full house, and their conversation with Ehigbor Okosun was engaging, funny, and informative. The best part for me was for sure getting to see Sim in person (and also editor Irene Vasquez!) who despite living in the same city and getting to design their book cover, I actually don't really see much of at all.
So, the above photo bringing Sim, Irene, and myself all together in the same physical space is in actually a very rare occurrence indeed.
THE BIG BOOK OF CYBERPUNK drops in just 13 days, and its impressive table of contents has been announced on File 770.
Like other Best-Of tomes, this thing is a doorstopper coming in at 1136 pages. It is very humbling to see one's name listed alongside giants you've read for years; like Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling, but it's also great so see the book bringing together many awesome contemporaries like Omar Robert Hamilton, Ales Kot, and Corey J. White. Not to mention boundary pushing thinkers like Samuel R. Delaney, Charles Stross, Lauren Beukes, and many more.
Looking forward to seeing it in person and spending the next 10 years attempting to read it all.
Time-blocking didn't quite work out for me yesterday. The epoxy resin I was planning on using on an art piece had yellowed due to less-than-ideal storage, so I put in an order for some but until it arrives, I have to keep the setup I have in place for it undisturbed because it took a while to prep (artwork perched on plastic on table, everything leveled—not easy to do because the entire house is in fact somewhat tilted). So when I switched to taking care of fulfillment instead, the occupied tablespace made it a little less efficient and it took way more time. As a result several other things I wanted to do never got done.
So, in the future, days where I do fulfillment shall be dedicated entirely to fulfillment and nothing else. If it is really terribly necessary to squeeze more in there, it'll only come after fulfillment is taken care of, just to ensure no potential mishaps lead to an unusable table.
And the same goes for artmaking, better to reserve specific days for that and only that.
And today I am with migraine. There go all my time-blocking plans now.
Awoken at 3:30 AM today for no comprehensible reason, after getting all of 3h-47m of sleep. This despite yesterday being a wonderfully productive day. Got some scriptwriting in, along with thumbnails, and also some painting. Did a grocery run, exercised for an hour, cooked a slamming dinner with enough leftovers for today while managing to keep the kitchen tidy. Took care of business email (inbox: zero), got some reading in, and even got to socialize later in the evening. And look at me, back to blogging again. I'm liking this time-block method.
Spending this week developing my timetable as each day progresses because the nature of what I do doesn't quite allow for identically plotted out days. Today for example, there will be much fulfillment of online orders from my shop, newsletter-writing, possibly some very belated website-updating, in addition to looking after my kid in the late afternoon into the evening. And my personal email inbox has been taunting me with the number 71.
Let's see what this timetable looks like by week's end and whether or not it could be reapplied to next week.