My usual work routine starts like this: with enough caffeine to inspire the day, I complete at least one art piece (ideally a painting, but contributing to almost complete half-done mini sketching notebooks is also acceptable), then I write, on the computer, at least a thousand words as warm up, and if my hands are not too clammy yet, I would write on pen and paper for at least three to five pages (which should also be around a thousand words at least); after all these, I would finally face the main project of the day. Or eat. Or take a nap. Or eat and then take a nap. And then the main project.
Most days I work on projects that are not due until more than enough time later. I am still not too fond of the dynamic of uncertainty and urgency-of-importance. I only take very well-calculated risks, and most calculations include leeway for both chaos and respite.
At least, that is how I would like to live. Most times. Or generally, that I do. Today, however, the main project is due tonight and it is far from being at a stage where I can be unconcerned about leaving it to stand on its own. I always think I am good at starting, and maybe that is true still because this is a case of returning to a middle point half-baked and teeming with wild leaves of unknown.
Hence, the thought of skipping today’s art session and instead jumping right into writing, to get a headstart on the main project. I have yet to get into the art groove enough for me to feel more easily what I ought to make on any day, and this Thursday is no different, so I thought, fine, I’ll just skip it, don’t really feel too strongly about it at the moment anyway.
It is sometimes the same with opening this café. One day I’ll write two thousand words for no apparent reason but that the words just flowed on their own and begged to be typed out here. Mostly whims, but we try to ride the energy. Although the idea of ‘consistency’ has its merits, it is also equally dubitable, especially for things that are inconspicuously esoteric like art and reflection. I had recently thought about going over here more frequently, sharing perhaps shorter thoughts and smaller pieces of work, but dismissed out of a lack of a stronger urge to do so. Some other day, perhaps, was a thought.
Writing a thousand words at the start of every day is easy. It has become so, like running. There is a good level of difficulty that keeps one engaged but there is also no need to meet a certain quality. It is, at times, just a lot of enduring that feels more and more like second nature the more one does it. So it was a no-brainer that I would get that done. I have gone past the time when I struggled to get its rhythm going, we’re on a good flow now here. But art [and going online]? Like walking against the wind. Sometimes it is a gentle breeze, fine, but still.
Yet today, as I write the first sentence of the thousand-words thing, I realise that I can sketch at least one small thing. From that is another realisation that I do feel like writing something for this space. That I would do both of these first before anchoring onto the writing exercise and proceeding with the day’s main project. Or maybe I have been inclined to do these despite the late start because of the impending deadline.
Doesn’t quite matter as much as time being a fickle little thing that could expand as one does when one ought to.
(And that maybe deadlines—those funny illusory things—can sometimes be used as escapism. So they are excuses, allowable at times, to do away with other things, but maybe they aren’t always good enough.)