The Yin and Yang of Creative Work

A tell-take symptom of modern day life, a flood of projects and responsibilities and messages and meetings and connections and destinations and media. Things to produce. Things to consume.

Of course I enjoy just letting go of it all and sitting quietly, enjoying the moment. That’s the reason it takes me so long to do anything but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The more we are in alignment with the flow, the more easily we can do everything we came here to do.

I knew it, back in March, when I released my first mini-novella Confessions of the Damaged 1.1 that a great deal of things could happen to postpone the release of part 1.2 and 1.3. The original plan was to release one part every 3-4 months. It’s been 10 months and I can promise part 2 won’t be out in October.

When you balance as many things as I do, you have aren’t just balancing those projects, you are balancing the energies that allow you to produce those projects.

On the one hand is fire. You can push through and make sure everything is done, but if you do that, you may lose the fun and flow of it, produce work that doesn’t fully embody what you are, and you might burn out. You don’t want the meal you are cooking (or your whole house) to go up in flames.

On the other hand is water which will help you to find that inspiration and peace and to enjoy what you are doing but without any fire, the water never boils and the food never gets cooked. Things can become stagnant.

You become the starving artist when you fail to put food on your table, or when the food is so over cooked that it loses its nutritious value.

These are the energies of life, we work with them every day.

As I’ve never had a boss when it comes to my art, I’ve suffered from both a lack of fire, and too much fire, as well if a lack of water where even the slightest fire could burn the house down. How do you think I lost my hair?

My method of keeping a balance between fire and water is to mix up the ingredients that I work with, to make every day a fresh menu. That’s why I frequently jump between writing fiction, playing music, blogging about life and self development, creating new study material and coaching, putting together a business and building up communities.

Some ingredients can last forever. Sometimes you wanted to cook something but the ingredients spoil because you wait too long. You wanted to eat other food and forgot about those ingredients as they expired. In that case, you need to take some time to find fresh ingredients.

This week I was pulled back towards my fiction. Part 1.2 and 1.3 of this series are already near complete. They just need artwork and promotion. I hope to find 5-6 artists in total for this series, one for each part. The first was done by @vincentnijman, mountain homie for life.

I reached out to two artists who I think would be perfect for this story and one has already agreed to work on 1.3.

During the next few weeks I will be spending a lot of extra time and energy on writing and editing. I want to make sure 1.4 is nearly finished before I release 1.3.

From there I will be putting together a website that brings all my different projects together. I will have to start planning some promotion as well.

This will be a big project, especially with other responsibilities and so I may get quiet here from time to time.

For the next few days I’m going to try to stockpile a few articles. I usually like to blog based on however I am feeling that day, to catch the wind of inspiration as it comes for me. There are a bunch of topics I’ve been meaning to write about forever though, I have a whole big list, so I’ll be working on those to save up for those 3-4 day periods that I’m too focused on my novella to blog.

I won’t be setting any date on any of this but I’m going to do my best to get Confessions of the Damaged 1.2 up by the end of the year, and a proper website soon after.

I’ll still be here. The goal is to make it so that you hardly notice when I’m gone except when my replies come a few days later than usual.

Wish me luck! 🦄

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