by Linda | Nov 17, 2011 | my creative journal
When it was first released as part of Seth Godin‘s Domino Project, I quickly read through Steven Pressfield’s super short book, Do the Work
. Although it’s probably not rocket science information in the creative world, I really connected with what he was saying and loved his “pep talk” style of writing. Simply put, we all know that it takes action and hard work to get something done. But breaking down the issues and problems that come up along the creative process helps me to deal with and overcome them, too.
So it’s been on my list for a while to read his more well known book, The War of Art (affiliate link to Amazon). I’ve downloaded it to my kindle and looking forward to more creative insight on this crazy thing called the creative process. The artistic genius, the creative beast, the starving artist… Art has such a dramatic reputation, don’t you think?
Although the book seems like it could be similar to The Artist’s Way, I know it’s not in a workshop style, plus I like the voice in which Pressfield writes…so I think it can only be a helpful thing to read the darn book. Have you read it? What do you think?
by Linda | Nov 16, 2011 | my creative journal
Lots of gratitude to my kindle, because I’ve managed to read a lot more than normally these past months. I’m definitely getting reading more into my normal day routine and perhaps one day I can get back to my teenaged years of devouring books by the dozen. For now, I’ve finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (affiliate link to Amazon) – I had started in October and posted about. Although you might think I’m probably the slowest reader in the world, I’m happy to have gotten through the book. How’s that for a happiness project?
I think of the book as a bit like The Artist’s Way that I’ve posted about before. It’s definitely a record of Gretchen’s year-long happiness project, but she shares her insights and experiences in hopes to inspire you to start your own happiness project. So you can definitely use it as a guide to go through a year of various happiness resolutions. I’ve definitely drawn out a lot of “food for thought” tid bits from the book. By no means a scientific approach to understanding the science of happiness – I had kind of hoped for more mentions of studies about happiness (listening to Radio Lab too much perhaps…) In reality, the book is more like a crafty DIY guide, documenting a year of happiness boosting attempts. I like it!
I don’t know if I can take on a project of that sort right now in my life, but just by reading the book I’ve gained insight. I think most of all, it’s about being more aware of what we do, how we do it and how we feel. I’ve certainly stopped more than once to think about what really makes me happy. What activities contribute to my happiness and how I can reduce crabbiness and grumpiness. I feel that I’m already more in tune and attentive to my own behavior. Even when it’s a bit too late to take back what I say, at least I can immediately say sorry and correct myself. Sometimes I feel like I missed all of this education and experience as a kid… maybe we should be teaching our kids these happiness ways of living, huh? It’s just a really interesting way to think about happiness and living.
Turns out there’s a whole website setup for people to start their happiness projects, according to how Gretchen approached it. If you are interested, definitely check out the book and the website for more info. Cheers!
by Linda | Nov 15, 2011 | my creative journal
Have you ever considered art licensing your work to be used on various products? I find it to be such a wonderful idea, because it’s one way to bring your art truly into the hands of people all over the world. It seems that on everyday products, your artwork would really be in front of people’s eyes. Maybe we don’t always realize that there’s an artist behind our tea towels and product packaging… but I think we do appreciate the design, color and aesthetic pleasure that comes with art on products.
Kate Harper has just posted a huge directory of art licensing companies that you can submit to, namely manufacturers and their submission pages and/or guidelines. It’s a really great resource and I’m actually one of the art angels listed at the bottom as well…
I’ve definitely been doing a lot of research and bookmarking possible submission opportunities. Although it might see like a difficult industry to get into, there are actually so many opportunities out there – too many! You actually have to figure out which ones are good fit for you, not just randomly submitting to as many places as possible. We all have to find our audience and our comfy little homes, so to speak. Check out the directory and good luck with new opportunities that could open up for you!
Do you have any links or art submission related experiences/links to share? Please do so in the comments below, much appreciated!
by Linda | Nov 10, 2011 | my creative journal
I’ve been stashing away a bunch of half-finished journals, because something went wrong during the process of construction, stopping me in my tracks. The futile quest for perfection really plagues me. I like it when things work out perfectly, even numbers, and that type of thing. It’s funny though, because I’ve never really done anything perfect… it’s just an illusion.
I couldn’t toss out all the great materials, so went ahead and finished all the journals. Now I’m one step closer to embracing imperfection. It’s a slow learning process, but I feel better every single time I challenge my crazy thoughts. I decided to turn my mistakes around into something fun and listed everything in my Etsy shop under Oopsie Sale. Some goof ups are noticeable, others are not…I’m not even sure if it really matters in the end. We are often so critical of ourselves, too critical.
After taking the photos and listing all the journals, I felt soooo much better. Whether they sell or not, I realized that I simply gave myself confidence by accepting reality and the imperfections in life. My work may not be perfect, but I think it’s beautiful. I was reminded again of how satisfying it is to create something from nothing.
Making a mistake doesn’t mean, I’m incapable of future success. We all have to get over it, right? Besides taking a step in the right direction, I just loving taking photos of my journals as well…ooo…styling is fun! So pretty!!!
by Linda | Nov 7, 2011 | my creative journal
I just saw a video presentation on Designing An MBA and started crunching some numbers for my own creative biz. I know that we have to figure out these details…but I think the fear of not achieving the goal, deters me from facing reality. I thought it would be nice to open it up and see if I’m just crazy. Please indulge me as I think out loud.
The simplest big picture calculation starts with how much profit you want. I decided to go through this exercise with a hypothetical example. Take the super low end of how much a graphic designer makes – about $36,000 yearly salary according to salary.com. In running your own business, in order to get paid that amount you have to rack in 3 times that amount in total sales. Again, bear with me here for the sake of this example because I know we all try to save on expenses and such. For that salary, it means that you want to shoot for $108,000 in total sales.
At this point, you might already be saying…oh the madness, how can that ever be possible!? Depending if you have a service business or product-based business, the costs of materials and profit margins might differ greatly. Fine, I will indulge myself by lowering the bar. Let’s say a total of $50,000 in sales is the goal for the year. If your average product sells for $20, you need to make 2500 sales a year. That rounds to about 10 products per work day, not even factoring in vacations you might want to take. Not only do you have to be able to create 10 of those products a day…you need to sell 10 a day. For a service provider like a graphic designer, $20/hour would mean working nearly 10 billable hours a day. Yikes! Obviously, there are certain scenarios that just won’t work out – simply look at the numbers.
And let me remind you that I lowered the bar in this example. I’m thinking about a whole lot of crafters and artists out there, who probably have products that are even lower than $20 a sale. How can this possibility work out, right? It’s no surprise that lots of folks are only scraping by.
How do you feel about this?
Have you crunched the numbers and figured out a plan that works for your business? What works for you and your services/products?
