principle09 :: this is it / this is me

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Updated Principles page with 09 :: this is it / this is me:

I'm not aspiring to anything other than continuous progression and improvement at my chosen art: this site, the newsletter, and the zine are, until they are otherwise, my chosen, wholly independent delivery systems for whatever I think, ponder, and create. The expressions and experiments and explorations shared in these spaces are neither aspirations nor stepping stones for anything bigger: I've spent more than half my adult life caring about things out of my control and, as I enter the back half of same, I've little interest in continuing down the same path. This space is – and these spaces are – for better or for worse, the truest expression of myself in this moment; whatever the next moment brings will be dealt with when it's time to deal with it. Until then, this is me, and I'm good with it.

principles - updated

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Principles, now numbering eight, with 05:

PUBLISH SOMETHING EVERY DAY - AKA the whole point of this space over the years: the daily posts are my warm-ups, my sketches – now including actual sketches – hurled into the world simply for the sake of hurling them into the world. I don’t anticipate that anyone will read them let alone enjoy them: they exist solely because I want them to exist and find the daily ritual of their composition in the spaces between the main work to be the most enjoyable method by which traverse the route between brain and publishing. Also a useful means by which to eradicate the need for external validation.

The complete living, breathing list lives and breathes here.

principles

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Spent the morning putting the finish touches on my principles page: seven guiding bedrocks – or at least as close as I can come to disseminating them – in an ever-updating (concrete yet maleable) list. Added it to the navigation bar. And with that, I don't think I have anything else to add. At least for now. But here they are, if you want to have a look.

(Those are supposed to be birds in the drawing below. I drew a blank.)

instance / workrhythm

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Successfully moved Mastodon instances from the catchall Mastodon.social to writing.exchange – I'm now at @twweaver@writing.exchange – and, in so doing, learned the value of the local timeline: what a delightful group of creative and generous people. Further, set a donation of $100/yr to the admins to keep the server lights on – which is what I probably would have paid by self-hosting my own – with the value of a new community. Worth it, I think – this co-op model is wonderful.

Accepted, somewhat, that I've slid into something of a natural workrhythm in which I work on stuff for this space / newsletter on weekends (makes me a little more elastic in terms of work/life etc etc). The two projects/day thing isn't going to work: my brain was too muddled and I spent much of the day yesterday in a jittery, button-pressing mess.

Looks like my Principles page will be going live tomorrow, maybe – eight of them in an ever-updating document.

side projects

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Spent this weekend attempting to get a foothold on some things I've long wanted to do (but never made the time for) that, in my intent, would eventually become either, a.) more permanent background reshapings of my writing / work practice, and/or, b.) weekend newsletter writing alternatives (I'd rather do these sort of things on the weekend than make the newsletter weekly) and midweek breaks from my MainProjects rotation.

  • First, inspired by CW&T's Principles, I'm ginning up my own living document of my creative principles, if only for myself. It will probably debut in next Sunday's 90th issue of MacroParentheticals before getting its permanent home in the ether of here.

  • Second, I'm finally digging into Lynda Barry's MAKING COMICS in an effort to think in different ways and come up with new modes of imperfect expression for this space (expanding VIOLENTLY ADORABLE, among other things). Already inspired me to start a new thing this morning.

  • And third, I've been developing the business end of my practice and building up the bones and sinew of my own micropress publishing company as a vehicle for my own projects and, eventually, perhaps, for others: CW&T meets Third Man Records only with a paper cutter and recycled carboard and shitty binder-taping jobs. PRESS (A) is the handmade part of it – designed specifically to be crude – with the eventual goal that I'll release more fully-realized (read: actually printed in small batches by competent people) products as the project deems necessary.

As I know more, you’ll know more.

“Hard work doesn’t always pay off”

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Fantastic episode of the CLEVER podcast featuring Taylor Levy, one half of CW&T, the (oft-mentioned here) design studio behind beloved essentials such as the Superlocal and the Pen Type-C. Great interview, with this bit, “Buy lots of lottery tickets,” from their Principles page, really speaking to me:

We’re not suggesting you should gamble, but launching a project often feels like rolling dice. Hard work doesn’t always pay off. There’s no correlation between how much time is spent working on a project and the ultimate payoff. That’s why we try lots of things. We make tons of stuff. And once in a while we get lucky.

While how, precisely, that will manifest in my own work remains TBD, I’m definitely looking to what Taylor and Chei-Wei are doing and using that as a basis for reconceptualizing my practice and how I think about the processes within. You can check out the whole interview here: