#i’ve been in an insane creative burnout lately

[chdarling]

As we’re getting closer to a truly awful day for America, I just wanted to check in on you. Things are bleak and about to get so so much worse, I want you to know I’m here and many others are here too when you’re ready

This is very kind of you, thank you. Honestly, I have not been doing great. Watching my neighbors elect a racist, fascist, Nazi-loving rapist triggered a pretty bad depressive episode on top of what was already the worst period of professional and creative burnout of my life, so….I’m struggling. Still trying to claw my way out of the dark. I’m deeply appreciative of the kindness of this community and am sorry that I haven’t (and probably won’t for a little longer) been able to engage the way I once did. I will again one day, and I am so thankful to know all you wonderful people online. <3

On a note that is completely unrelated to this gentle ask, I’ve been getting a ton of messages lately asking for a date when TLE3 is coming out and I don’t feel up to answering them (sorry) so I’m just going to tack this on here since I buried my last post on the subject under a mountain of despair reblogs: TLE3 is going to take a while.

I’m still planning to continue with my writing projects (be they TLE or other things), but right now I’m focusing on securing my own oxygen mask, etc. When I finished posting TLE2, I said that I would be taking a break and also that I would not be posting TLE3 until I had written all of it (like I had for TLE1). Even if I had been writing diligently every single day since I posted the last chapter, I still wouldn’t be done, so please understand that it’s going to take a while. It certainly will not be coming in the next 6 months, very possibly not in 2025. I know some people won’t be happy to hear that, but just a fun statistic: OOTP has 257,045 words and took three years to write/publish after GOF. TLE2 has (and this makes me cringe a little) 407,079 words and took roughly 3 years to write as an unpaid side hobby on top of full time work, education, etc. I don’t say this to toot my own horn (frankly, it just makes me desperately want to retroactively edit the crap out of TLE2 lol), but rather to reiterate that writing a book-length work takes a lot of time, energy, and love. I don’t want it to take 3 years (and I don’t think it will, TLE3 will be a more reasonable length), but it’s certainly not going to be finished in a few months. That would be insanity and I am not that talented lmao.

I do know that the requests for updates come from a place of love and enthusiasm and excitement and I really, truly appreciate that. I also appreciate all of the kind words of the asks I haven’t been answering. Please know that I’ve read them, I love you, and I will be back eventually. I just have to focus on my health right now, and unfortunately these days being online is pretty bad for that, so I'm going to try to be logged off for a while.

And finally, on another completely unrelated but perhaps mildly tangential note: if anyone has any books recommendations or resources on processing climate grief, I, uh, could use them. 🫠

[unlessfunplans]

7:50 a.m- 10/17/2024

I’m flying to Colorado in two days! I always get so excited for these trips and wind up packing way in advance. My bags are sitting on the floor, along with some clean laundry I need to bring home before I go.

I finished my homework last night and was rewarded this morning by a beautiful golden light peeking through my curtains. Opening them let one of the prettiest sunrises into my room, which I was able to fully appreciate without the cloud of procrastination hanging over me.

(this was my sight upon waking up, a promising golden beam on the wall)

(my suncatcher loved the light, casting rainbows all around the room. One of my incentives for getting up early is knowing I’ll get to see the rainbows.)

Having the freedom to wake up and do anything I want is such a rare and special feeling. Do I go for a walk in the early morning chill? Do I get the bubble bath from my car and take a bubble bath while my roommate is out of town and I have the bath to myself? Do I stay in bed, cozy and un-obligated, and play Minecraft?

I’m on a Minecraft kick lately. The burnout has washed away and two of my friends from work want to start a realm together. I’ve been watching gameplay videos nonstop. Just like the sims, it’s really nice to have a pocket of my life where I feel like I’m in control, with a creative element to keep me engaged!

Ideally I would eat but the kitchen is pretty barren. Poverty loves students, and Canadian students (unless your parents are lawyers, like in one of my friends’ cases) especially are very familiar with spending 14k on an education only to forgo a meal or two when that investment, funny enough, leaves little room for groceries. Don’t get me started on groceries.

(I saw a Deep and Delicious cake on for $7.99. In what world are we normalizing this crime!)

My plants are thriving and I couldn’t be prouder. Galadriel (left) needs a new pot desperately but look how green she is! She’s grown so much since I got her back in April. Un-named spider plant (my boyfriend and I have just taken to calling him Spider-Plant) was sawed down to nothing by our younger cat last spring.

(Apparently Spider plants are like a minor psychedelic to cats (and toxic, besides). She climbed to impossible places to access it in the kitchen we were renting, her determination to chew this plant was insane. When she found the pot hidden one day, she screamed at us. “Give me my fiiiiix!” We imagined her crying. “My psychedelics!”.)

With that in mind, Spider-plant’s comeback is stunning. I’m more obsessed than I should be about the little “hang-down” branch growing in the left. Something something, insert metaphor about growth and starting from base one.

With all that said and done, I still have hours to decide what I want to do. Tomorrow I drive South to catch a train to Toronto, where boy and I will be staying with a friend who has been kind enough to offer to drive me to the airport at 3a.m.!

I’ve deeply missed my wild forays into the United States. At least this one is a direct flight. There will be no boy coming with me, my first solo trip out of Ontario since October 2022.

However I decided to occupy my time, at least I know that it’s bound to be a good day not matter what. There is lots that I ought to be doing, but nothing so important that it can’t wait. Today is just genuinely my day off.

[the-dewofthesea]

real life update

so this post is long overdue sorry, anyways here we go.

as many of you might know I've been struggling a lot lately between getting used to my new job, trying to survive the long hours and still feeling like normal human being. it hasn't been easy especially with the whole situation of being home alone all the time and not haven seen my family in over a year. I had to cancel a lot the past weeks as I either was just so tired the only thing I did was sleep, work, eat, repeat. or I just had panic attacks because of me just not being able to deal with everything anymore.

so the new job is fun and the team is great, they are just working way to long hours resulting in me being dead half of the time when I finally come home. since it's retail and you have to be there during the opening hours there isn't much I can change about it, especially not in this beginning period when it's still uncertain if I actually get to keep the job. there's almost always 2 or 3 months here in the beginning that you are working on a tryout basis, so you can still quit without the contract waiting period or the employer can just cancel your contract... so things are still a bit unsure and making me anxious.           I know they probably really value me for this department I'm working on as they want to expand it and use my knowledge in photography and fine arts to do so. but you know in the end you are just driving yourself insane when you get no validation or are uncertain about stuff. I also don't think I can keep this job up for a long time in this way they do it, I almost got a burnout from the last one I'm not waiting for that to happen again.

anyways, so because of all this I haven't had a lot of time and energy to do anything else and it makes me sad. I miss creating things and using my creativity and I'm scared it will turn out to be the same as back at my last job when I never had the ability to do things anymore because of this. it's the worst because sometimes I'm literally bored to death at the job if there are no customers or things to do anymore, but you know you have to stay till the shop closes. my mind just starts thinking of all the things I could do... and I can't even use my phone or anything. I now sometimes use post-it notes to write down ideas and to do lists so I don't forget.

I hope that when I get the rhythm of the job down a bit more I can get back to planning and scheduling things again. I really appreciate all of you lovelies for your support and staying with me during this hard and insane time, the past 17 months have been a real roller-coaster and every single day I just wish it will stop and things will get better again, and honestly without you all and the lovely people I've met online I wouldn't been able to get through it all.

REMEMBER TO BE MYTHICAL, STAY CURIOUS & LEARN SOMETHING NEW

[okamirayne]

Hi rayne! Late night anon coming back from the dead. D'you still remember me? Got soooooo busy lately and been stressing out with a formal english exam but now it's over and I passed 🥳 I missed you a lot. How's the burnout going so far? Is it still being mean to you? Also... if Im not mistaken... HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!...? 🤣 Facebook told me it is your birthday so Im here✌️ Hope you're having a wonderful one and you keep safe and healthy always!

Hey there my dear Night-Dwelling Anon!

Of course I remember! Fellow insomniacs are always familiar faces in my particular circle of moonbat insane. So lovely to hear from you! Wey hey! Congrats on passing your formal English exam!

How's the burnout going so far? Is it still being mean to you?

Oh indeed. It remains a helldog bastard. My inner dialogue with said helldog bastard is currently along these lines...

I'm sharpening my quills, pens, and all manner of pointy stationary to stab it to death...just waiting in the reeds, boiling my cuppa chai to prep me...ritual, you know...like a psychopath. My homicidal fantasies aside, I've been blessed with freelance work to keep my creative mind from crawling the walls of my skull. Also, blessedly, Autumn often wakes up the mystical magical witchy-woman mojo in me, so I'm hoping that my creativity will begin to flow again, rather than leak like a busted faucet. Bless you for asking, my luv, and I apologise for my metaphorical shitshow of an answer.

Also... if Im not mistaken... HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!...? 🤣 Facebook told me it is your birthday so Im here✌️ Hope you're having a wonderful one and you keep safe and healthy always!

Oh my gosh, you sneaky ninja you.

Thank you so much for the kind wishes, my dear. <3 Big love across the miles. I hope you're also keeping safe and well during these chaotic times!

[alcego-writes]

Words Written: 37,097

Work:

The Road That Follows - I didn’t work on this as much as I would have liked, although I did get some worldbuilding done, and I played around with scenes/wrote a couple drabbles for VV’s pride week. I’m definitely getting a feel for June and Winnie’s dynamic as well as for the tone I want for the story, although a part of me is starting to worry that I won’t be able to write the story as well as I’d like. Which is a silly fear, all things considered, but I’m going to navigate it by making a decent outline, fast drafting, and then re-drafting to make things pretty later.

Misc. Work - It’s been pretty busy, which is good. Did some outline work, which was actually a really nice change of pace. Makes me think I might like to do more outlining work in the future.

Notes:

Despite the overwhelming feeling that I’m not doing enough, this week was insanely productive. Like. “I wrote 15k in one day” kind of productive. So I’m definitely not complaining, even if I did neglect TRTF a bit while focusing on work...

It’s likely related to the, you know, fucking batshit word count for this week, but I have been exhausted for the past few days. Add a nasty little arthritis flare-up (and concerns that I need to bring up with my rheumatologist) and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Luckily, I’ve pushed through it and I seem to be doing alright.

I’ve been keeping an eye on burnout, but I think I’m managing it alright. Writing for work means that most of my energy goes to writing, and I’m splitting my creative energy between different projects, most of which are in different stages of brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, so it’s managable. Exhausting at times, but certainly managable.

Working with my sister to check on the saddle fit for our horse. We’ve had him for a six or so years now, and since we don’t know exactly how old he is (he’s a rescue) we’re a bit worried that some of his behavior issues as of late are tied to joint pain. Since vet visits are expensive, we’re going to rule out saddle fit as an issue first. I’ve read up on the important things (saddle length, gullet width, cantle to pommel level, etc.) and if all goes well I’ll be able to figure out if there’s an issue with the way our saddles fit his back.

Updates Tag List: @maxgraybooks @howdy-writes @ladywithalamp @violetcancerian @daltoneering (Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!)

[rhenal]

Hello again

Wow, it’s been a year now since i last posted anything here. I’m still alive, if anyone is still here at all to care. Um. Last post I did was about the status of my mental health, so I guess a follow-up would be prudent, no?

So now it’s official. I have both Aspergers and ADHD. I thought it was just ADD, but no. The hyperactivity aspect is something I very much have. It’s just that it doesn’t manifest physically - it simply manifests mentally in that my mind is always everywhere at once - that my train of thought manifests more like a puppy on its first snow day than like an actual train.

I’ve been on antidepressants for 13 months now, but I’ve only really felt any real effect from them for the last month and a half as I finally got to change med type. The first type barely helped and gave me nightmares two nights out of three, but those things were small and irrelevant enough for me to it really bring it up until now. Because for all that time, I have been searching for and adjusting to ADHD meds as well, and you only want to sort through one set of side-effects at a time. Turns out I’m really sensitive to side effects, so finding the right type and dosage took a long time, and I’m not certain that the one I’m on now is the best choice still. 

I’m still on full-time sick leave for burnout, since February 14th last year. Currently it will last until the end of August, then we’ll reevaluate from there. Hopefully I can start studying again by that point, if only at 50%.

Turns out, it takes a really long time to recover from a bout of burnout that has had five entire years of buildup. 

So what am I doing now? Mostly just being useless. Restless but without the energy to do anything about it. I barely eat these days, and my sleep cycle is just completely nonexistent. See, in large part due to aforementioned double-whammy of Aspergers and ADHD, my capacity for self discipline is basically nil. With me being on sick leave, I have nothing that forces me to get up and do stuff. There is no reason other than my own health to get up in the morning.

Add to that the fact that both my current antidepressants and my ADHD meds lower my appetite. I do not get hungry anymore. I just get tremors in the late afternoon when I’ve forgotten to eat all day. I can go entire days where I am never ever hungry, and when I finally manage to make something to eat and force myself to just eat it dammit, I can barely get half the meal down.

My doctor has actually advised me to eat small snacks through the entire day to make up for it. You know, the thing that you’re usually heavily discouraged from doing? :’)

In conclusion, my daily life is kinda shit. I’m doing what I can to get better at it all, even going to group therapy every week, but it feels like a Sisyphean effort. 

I’m too burnt out to study or work, but without study or work, I can’t really recover properly. It’s one real bastard of a catch 22.

I’d move back home, but that’s not really an option. Not now that the family’s got a much smaller apartment. I’d have to live on the couch, in a living room with no possible way of real privacy. And I’m an introvert. I am really fortunate to have a family as loving and supportive as I do, and I love them dearly - but I NEED my space. When I went there over the winter holidays, just those two and a half weeks I was there was enough to suck me completely dry of energy. 

If anyone has any advice, I’d love to hear them. Because I need them desperately.

So well. That’s where I am now. 

[garbling thought-vomit about social issues and the failings of tumblr as a community below. Probably best ignored.]

So, why’d I disappear from Tumblr? Should be obvious. The state of my mental health is bad enough without having to deal with the constant anxiety of dealing with this social network. The nonexistence of nuance and the total intolerance of anything even remotely problematic. And the idea that if you like anything that has any problematic aspects in it at all, that means YOU are problematic and are to be ashamed.

It’s actually a really hostile environment for creatives. 

The pressure to be perfect and totally 100% inclusive at all times with not a nanometer’s space for human error or honest mistakes, the attitude that ‘if you’re not perfect 100% of the time always you are EVIL AND BAD AND SHALL BE SHUNNED FOREVERMORE’. 

The attitude a lot of Tumblr seem to have that the only things you are ever allowed to write or otherwise portray are essentially self-portraits because if you haven’t personally experienced it you should never ever write it ever. Kinda makes it impossible to even try to do properly inclusive work for fear of getting even a single minute detail wrong. It’s actually really really fucking hostile and I hate hate hate it. Like, I keep seeing creators of all kinds - writers, artists, cartoonists, animators and game devs alike try their very hardest to make something as inclusive and culturally diverse as they can, only to be rewarded with heaps upon heaps of abuse from Tumblr users just because they weren’t 100% perfect in every single aspect, or that their efforts were seen as ‘virtue signaling’ and are only doing it to make themselves look good and that is false and sin and to be PUNISHED.

It’s like the reward for trying your best to make something that everyone can enjoy without feeling left out is only hate and vitriol. 

(All the while creators who do not care about inclusivity at all get perhaps but a mere fraction of this abuse, I might add. It’s pretty fucking insane when you think about it.)

It’s suffocating.

And it’s total fucking bullshit.

People make mistakes. 

People change. 

And people can absolutely grow from those mistakes and be better. 

But Tumblr as a community keeps fostering this attitude that if you have ever said or done anything even remotely wrong on any level, regardless of the context or how long ago it was or how much better you have grown to be since then, once an uninformed or unthinking statement - accidental or not - always a racist. Or homophobe. Or transphobe. Or ableist. Or any kind of -ist or -phobe imaginable.

I’ve been very fortunate to not really have had to endure any witch-hunt personally, but I saw them happen all the time. And it just. Well. I got really fucking tired of it, and it further worsened my mental health by quite a lot. I just cared too much that I couldn’t stop ranting about it in my head. Sometimes for days.

So I left.

Why am I back? Honestly, I have no idea. I guess I still have a lot of thoughts about things and I’ve been really isolated this last year, so I just need a place where I can put them.

I intend to go on a bit of a purge of the blogs I follow and start with a zero-tolerance policy for witch-hunting bullcrap and other drama. 

See, I have a pretty simple, straightforward moral code. It’s often difficult to follow, due to the human brain working as it does with it’s shitty, garbage, garbage ‘us vs them’ mentality, but it is something I intend do always strive for.

No one should ever be judged for that which they can not control

Ever. That includes the entire spectrum of skintones, every single possible gender identity, sexuality, romantical affiliation, neuropsychiatric status - normal or otherwise, physical condition, place of birth, state of family or culture they grew up in. Or anything else I can think of.

No one picks the toolbox they’re born with. All that should ever matter to anyone is what they build with it.

Fuck jokes about skin colour - ANY skin colour - it’s tacky and only serves to further strengthen the idea that they somehow make people fundamentally different, and that idea can get set on fire and shot into the sea. 

Yes, there are absolutely issues with the culture surrounding differences in levels of melatonin. White people like myself carry a lot of privilege in the west, and darker skinned people of all kinds absolutely do face a lot of unjust treatment in the world. No matter what country in the world you are in, that place’s “default” - how I detest that unfortunate consequence of the human brain functioning as it does - will always carry a strong privilege compared to those who do not fit that default.  But it’s all cultural. There’s nothing inherent in looking any certain way that dictates a person’t being. It’s all the norms and values of the culture they were raised in - and cultures change. It’s slow. It’s difficult. But it is absolutely a worthwhile struggle, is it not?

And, maybe a reasonable path to changing a culture to be more inclusive is to maybe not constantly call attention to such differences? Because that only strengthens the idea that the trait pointed out is ‘other’ - not part of the ‘normal’. 

And we want to widen the definition of normal to include all of us. Right? That’s pretty much this entire community’s mission statement, isn’t it?

I’m thinking that simply acting like a trait is normal, that it’s not something that’s even worth calling attention to, does a lot to normalise that trait. To help it be included within the definition of normal. 

Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am.

And then there’s the whole thing with white guilt/cultural shame or pride or any somesuch. I have thoughts. Probably pretty controversial thoughts. So I’m preparing myself for pitchforks.

Feeling shame or guilt over whatever hand you drew in the grand lottery of genetical happenstance is just really fucking stupid. That much should be thoroughly established by now. But the thing is, so is feeling pride, for the same reason. You did fuck all to affect what you got. The deeds of your ancestors have nothing whatsoever to do with you. 

You don’t get to choose your toolbox. You can only choose what to do with it.

It feels kind of weird to condemn cultural pride as a concept like this, but I do. I really honestly do. Because it’s dumb. Incredibly hard to drop, absolutely - most of us are fed with it since birth, after all - but it’s still dumb. I mean, what on earth did anyone do to earn the culture they grew up in? Nothing. Because it’s entirely out of your hands.

Treasure your culture, absolutely! Revel in it. Learn all you want and can and strive to carry it forth to the next generation, and to teach anyone who wishes to listen. Absolutely do! Take pride in your accomplishments. Take pride in what you do to carry your culture forth into the future. Take pride in what you help others accomplish. Take pride in what you do to raise public awareness of the reality of your culture. Or your sexuality. Or gender identity. Or any other aspect of your being that is being woefully misrepresented somewhere.  But don’t take pride in simply being what you are. 

Because that’s just part of the completely random toolbox you got at birth - a toolbox you could not have possibly chosen any part of.

Taking pride OR feeling shame over things that you had no hand in is something you have no right or reason to do.

Never judge anyone - not even yourself - by what they have. Judge only by what they DO with what they have.

These thoughts have all been spawned by my time on tumblr. It’s a community that wants to be progressive and inclusive, but is much too often anything but. It’s all complaining, all vitriol, all salt, all echo chambers fostering this kind of thinking. Very little, if any, actual attempts at working towards real improvement.

I remember seeing a comic that circulated some time ago. About equality vs equity. There were these three kids standing by a fence, trying to watch a game of some sport or another taking place at the other side. They were all different height. 

In the equality picture, all three kids got a box to stand on, of equal size.

In the equity picture, they got a different amount of boxes, making it so all of them could see over the fence.

But there was a third picture. One rarely included. 

This picture adressed the fence itself. It swapped the wooden fence to a wire fence. One that all three kinds could see the game through, without any need of boxes.

That’s the kind of world I’d much rather live in. One where the barrier itself is adressed. Where there is no need for boxes to stand on. 

Yet all anyone can really, truly do, is do as Michael Jackson said, and start with the man in the mirror.

We can complain. We can decry. We can wallow. But it’s all for naught if we don’t then step up and act on it.

I'm sick and tired of the ceaseless complaining without action and the oppressive feeling of helplessness fostered here. I want to actually DO something to help the world be better. And if I’m not in a position where I can help personally, I can at least reach out to those in a position to do so.

This is why I donate to charity whenever I can afford it, despite my miniscule budget of a university student on sick leave with a lot of medical fees.

This is why I endeavor to always smile to strangers, be they the retail worker at the checkout, a simple passerby or the cold beggar on the street.

This is why I am always eager to share what I know with people who may need it, be it pointers about mental health or simply how to patch up a torn pair of pants.

All minuscule, inconsequential acts in the grand scheme of things. But it’s something. It’s my small straw, pulled to the anthill. Makes me feel just a little tiny bit less helpless about all the terrible things in the world.

Because even if it’s something small, it’s better than doing nothing. Far better than simply complaining and wallowing about a problem without ever following it up with action.

I don’t even know what I’m on about anymore. I should probably stop writing. Get something to eat. Go to sleep. Bye for now, then.

[workingontravel]

A big part of the work for us is to have a good time

(You can find this text in Swedish here.) The questions I have asked in this project have often led to conversations about the loneliness of travelling. When I met the choreographers Halla Ólafsdóttir and Amanda Apetrea, it was the companionship of travelling that came up instead: how working communities create temporal and spatial frameworks for relationships, and how personal desire shapes and is shaped by these communities.

The first time I met Halla and Amanda was around 2010. They impressed me and still do, with their creative autonomy and their collectivities influenced by feminism.

  Halla Ólafsdóttir and Amanda Apetrea

Amanda: 2013 was a groovy travel year. We were at the spring meeting of PAF (Performing Arts Forum). It’s always both up and down at PAF. But we had confit de canard and smoked pot and went to the store and bought huge amounts of food and ice cream. Then we went on to Barcelona with a group made for work and friendship that we called The Future. It was this luscious dream encounter where we read interesting texts, talked, smoked even more pot, cooked even more food, munched cookies. And later that summer, we were in Vienna, where Halla and I played our show and won a prize. Maybe it wasn’t a dream for you, though, Halla, you had a burnout. Halla: I had a burnout after. It was because I was doing, like, twenty projects at the time. That summer was insane. John Moström and I had a residency in Berlin. There was a heat wave and we made Giselle, which involved meeting a large group of people and being with them for two consecutive weeks. It took a lot more energy than I had imagined. And there was no air conditioning, neither in Vienna, nor in Berlin. Amanda: Right. There was a thunderstorm and we were lying naked with the windows wide open in Vienna, trying to not let our skin touch anything. Halla: After that, I toured with The Knife. I wouldn’t have wanted to say no to any of that. But when I took time off in the autumn, I hit the wall. I think I managed to avoid the big crash. I was full of sorrow for four months. I never want to go there again. Since then, I have learned to leave spaces in my calendar. It’s completely unreasonable for me to go from one place to the next without a break in between. Amanda: I know a bit about that stress, your shoulders rise as soon as the phone buzzes. When I started studying choreography under Mårten Spångberg and realised how much we would be travelling, I panicked. I was in a so-called closed relationship. I couldn’t see how that could work alongside. At that time, travelling was such fun and super-annoying at the same time, because everything happened at once. We had to do a solo while on tour. We had to always be available and always socialise and always cook food and serve it. For one and a half year, we were never in Stockholm for more than two weeks at a time. My relationship ended as a direct consequence of my education. I don’t regret anything, but it came at a price. Halla: I also experienced that, in several closed relationships with men. Very few can stand being with someone who has my lifestyle. When I was younger, it was also important for me to demonstrate that I didn’t depend on anyone, that I was prepared to sacrifice everything to be a dancer, move anywhere if that was what it took. It was a huge insight when I realised that I didn’t have to audition for jobs I didn’t want; that I could work with myself and my friends.

Amanda: I don’t quite recognise that thing of putting dance before everything else. I tend to invest that energy in making my relationships work instead. You probably need more time to work out how to live if you don’t want to do the heteronormative family thing.

 Halla: When I spend longer periods of time in Iceland, I sometimes feel like an UFO. There aren’t that many women who are single and don’t want kids. Whether you’re straight or gay, it’s important there to have family and children and a partner and a flat. People get pregnant three months after meeting. I feel, not just in Iceland but here as well, that I should be respectable now that I’ve turned forty. That it’s shameful to want to party, to want to go out dancing, to laugh, to talk. That it’s selfish to put my own interests first.

Amanda: It’s also self-sacrificing to not contribute to over-population. Who wants to bring a child into this shitty world? I do, but that’s just because I want to be imortalised. I have massive death anxiety. But it would still have to be something outside the norm. I’m exploring that in different constellations.

Halla: Back in Iceland, I have a big group of friends that I’ve known since I was fifteen. We go on meeting. But the kind of friendships I have through my job, they stopped having fifteen years ago. I get to lie in bed and chitchat until late at night with amazing people. I get to be really nerdy about dance and choreography, discussing, analysing. I love my life. But there’s room for improvement. I haven’t been in a steady relationship for seven years. It’s mostly been short-term. And I often worry about money. And all my homes are sublets, and I’ve moved at least every other year since I was nineteen. I would like to try living in one and the same place for longer now, just to see what it feels like.

Amanda: I’m glad I have a home, it feels safe and important, but I’m thinking of a person that we met many times on these travels. He’s phased out having a fixed abode; he just travels. It’s interesting to think what relationships you would need, living like that.

Halla: Friendships often develop for practical and logistic reasons. Like a friend I always stay with when I visit the city where she lives. Without that, we wouldn’t have got to know each other as well. There is also something beautiful about becoming part of someone else’s context when you travel; coming along to dinners and things.

Amanda: Me and the choreographer Mica Sigourney created a logistic structure in order to develop our friendship. Our whole relationship is based on Swedish funding. We had an instant crush when we met in Vienna. We started talking about art and life and shared the same perspective. I immediately suggested that I should apply for money for us.    In the beginning, it was super difficult to keep up the relationship with Mica. I just wanted to fast-forward and look back to see how it worked out. But now, we have got more into the long-distance relationship thing. You check on the fb-chat what’s up, and then you go deeper into the relationship every time you meet. I no longer have the sense of constantly having to start over. I know what it feels like when he’s sitting in my sofa. But I would like to merge the San Francisco life with life here in Stockholm. San Francisco could contribute with fun queer contexts and parties, and Sweden the money for our relationship. Halla: You and Mica seem to work quite a lot like we do when we work together. A big part of the work for us is to have a good time. You don’t get creative ideas just by trying to use your time efficiently. Amanda: We like to be slow. Slowing down is part of the intimacy I share with Halla. It bleeds into our work as well. It can be hard to dare to tell others that you would prefer only working after lunch. You feel like a fuck-up. But Halla and I have worked really hard to get there, to be proud of what we do.

Halla: I’m better now at saying: “This is not a situation where something happens. Can we change it?” But that also depends on the context, of course, on what you want to resist and why. I’m thinking of when we won that prize at ImPulsTanz in Vienna in 2013. Then we got a residency. If we had already won the prize, why should we be diligent festival-participants and show our faces everywhere? We stayed in bed and talked and read poetry instead. We told them to give our studio time to someone else. And it turned out fine.

Amanda: Residencies are good. Like when we launched our latest process with Samlingen.

Halla: Samlingen is a group of five choreographers who are also friends. Since we’re all doing a thousand other things, it’s hard to meet all of us outside work. The first thing booked in the calendar is what ends up happening. So, working together can be a way of seeing each other.

Amanda: The people in Samlingen live very different lives. That is more or less evident, depending on what we do. When we spent five days together in the archipelago, having different needs in our everyday lives wasn’t a problem. Halla: Then we had time to read aloud to each other before going to sleep. You don’t take that kind of time – to lie down and think in something soft – when you’re in the studio at some institution. The studio is associated with efficiency. Amanda: Things were more equal during the residency than when we worked at Riksteatern later. At Riksteatern, some needed to get home to their families as early as possible, while Halla and I would have preferred to sleep in.

Halla: It takes time to achieve consensus with so many brains involved.

Amanda: We are five super-strong people, so you really have to fight for your ideas. If you go to the bathroom, seven thousand decisions have been made when you get back. Halla: I’ve started saying: “Don’t talk while I’m gone, be quiet!” Amanda: It’s also often insanely intense when we’re on tour with Samlingen. Halla: It’s because we meet a new group every time and make a show with them for a couple of days: it’s not like an ordinary tour where you can do a warm-up and go for a walk in the city. Amanda: You hardly have time to send a text message. There‘s no limit to the amount of work, or the limit is when you close your hotel door. I have no idea how to wind down afterwards. I have a need to be alone, but then I get a lot of fomo. And when I come home, I miss my friends, like we haven’t been together. We just went on some trains together and didn’t even get to sit next to each other.

Halla: I actually prefer playing the same show many times instead of travelling all the way to Brussels or Kortrijk to do only one. And I’d love to play more times in one place, preferably in projects that I’m not in charge of. Then I can take care only of myself and I know exactly what to do on stage. The routines in that kind of tour are good for the body.

Amanda: But being on tour can also be difficult. You eat food that you’re unaccustomed to and your stomach goes weird. You perform on completely different floors, such as in a cold and windy tent. You forget to stretch. On one tour, I had constant bacterial vaginosis. I had to go on antibiotics every other month for more or less a year. I don’t know if it was related to the travelling, but I was constantly thinking about it while travelling. In every new place, it was, like: “Where’s the pharmacy, can I get hold of medication?” And it hurt on stage wearing tight shorts.    In the last years, I’ve probably travelled less than earlier. Maybe I’ll visit ten places and be away approximately two months in a year. I think it’s because some shows I worked with were more local; we both rehearsed and played here in Stockholm. Then you don’t get invited anywhere except here. If you travel with a show, you get to travel more. I think you travel more than I do, Halla.

 Halla: I’m probably away from Sweden for four or five months a year. People still ask me if I live in Sweden. I moved here in 2000 to do a dance programme at Balettakademin. So, I started going back and forth between Iceland and Sweden. After finishing, I stayed here to have a context around me. It’s not that Stockholm is a dream city, but it’s possible to work and have friends here. I have also worked a lot in Europe. And we did a tour with The Knife in the USA. At night, the tour bus drove through the Arizona desert, which I had always dreamed of seeing. Through the little window by the bed, I could only see darkness. So, I’ve been to the Arizona desert, but I haven’t seen anything. But the tour bus was amazing, because we drove right up to the venue. And we never had to think of what to eat. I’m so used to doing things myself. I’ve started getting jittery before travel because there’s so much to keep in mind: waking up, packing, getting one transport to the central station, then another… I hate the central station. And trains make me nauseous. Planes make me think of death. 

Amanda: I like horses. I was a horse girl for a long time. Maybe this is not in the near future, but it feels like a good possibility that we could travel by horse and wagon. We should go slower, shut things down and invest the little energy that exists in servers so we can stay in touch over distances. Preferably with a bit more developed technology than now, to make the virtual sex more real. I get slightly panicky thinking that the people I want to keep in touch with can disappear from my life because of distance. Like Mica. Why did I get a best friend who lives so far away? Can’t everyone just be here? Or around a lake in Ulricehamn? There is a really pretty lake in Ulricehamn.

Halla: But If I can’t fly, I lose half of my jobs and I won’t see my family and friends. I can’t afford to go by boat to Iceland, it costs a thousand euro and is really slow. I don’t want that to happen. Within Europe, I could maybe imagine going by train, if the institutions who book and pay tickets are also okay with it taking three days longer. Or a month longer. The people who programme could stop flying in a show for just two days, and instead start cooperating with other venues in the nearest town, or the same town. If we had genuine cooperation with organisers who were prepared for a group to come and settle for a month, maybe we could start talking for real about how to build an audience. Because that is something we are asked in every application. But how are we supposed to build an audience if we play only one performance in a city where we don’t have a network?

 Amanda: It would be nice to slow down, and it’s needed, either way.

[dustiarab]

What I’ve learned from a month of one day intensives

Just over a month ago, I got hit with a crazy idea.

I do a lot of the same kinds of work over and over again. The basic work is straightforward. Build the website.

If my retainers to get this stuff done are based on how many hours I know something will take me, what if I changed how I worked with people to do it all in one day?

I scribbled down the format on half a sheet of paper. I wondered if it could work – it’d have to be specific. After all, it would only be one day.

Would people be into it?

20 Fixes later, I’m thrilled to say they are – and this works. It works for me, it works for them, and it’s rapidly working for their bottom line. (I’ll be sharing full case studies with you over the next few weeks.)

But this process has been one of massive learning and growth, and even though I’m doing the same kinds of work, it’s evolved in a way that has been fascinating. Here are my biggest takeaways from a month one day intensives.

1. I am a production machine.

I’ve always produced a lot of content, but this has been on a level I couldn’t have imagined before. In an eight hour session, I’m creating as much as a style guide, 4-5 page website (both design and copy), a lead magnet (both content and design), and a 4-email autoresponder sequence.

My clients are always shocked when I tell them how far their retainer hours will take them – and they are even more shocked when I can produce an entire brand in a day. I don’t give myself enough credit for how intuitive I am and how quickly I can accomplish things.

Some of my favorite things I’ve made this month:

Pleasure by Susan Hyatt

TEDx Prep Kit by Jill Wesley

The New Resilience Project by Magda Pecsenye

2. Systems are god.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I couldn’t do what I do at the speed I do it without airtight (yet flexible) systems that protect my time, energy, and attention, and keep me on lock.

Initially, I mapped out what one of these intensives would look like on a half sheet of paper. I figured if it didn’t fit, it didn’t belong. Then, I created a list of everything I needed in order to accomplish it quickly.

The kind of focus this work takes is substantial, and proper prep work beforehand ensures I can deliver at my best.

Hot Tip: If you’re thinking about a Fix, start here. This is everything I’ll ask you for before your Fix happens!

3. Self care has to be a priority, or I’m going to burn right the fuck out.

I’ve been reaaally picky lately about who and what is getting my time and energy this month. Creating a brand in a day is no joke, and the possibility of both physical and creative burnout is very real. (H/T to Randi Buckley for instantly seeing the potential for this when I first started doing Fixes and saying so.)

Lately, I’ve been much better about making sure I’m getting enough time out with other people so I don’t lose my damn mind, (#extrovertproblems) but there is a high chance I’ll be limiting the number of Fixes I do soon.

4. This is the thing my network has been waiting for.

I’m finally working with people who I’ve been dying to work with for years. It lights me up. It’s ridiculously fun. And, yes, more, please, Universe.

5. Referrals are what my business runs on – which means when I fuck up, I REALLY fuck up.

I’ve fucked up a couple of projects over the past month beyond the point of redemption. I’ve butchered some relationships as a result. And you know what? I’m doing the best I can with what I have. I’ve apologized. I’ve given refunds. I’ve owned where I’ve fallen down.

And the reality is I’m going through a custody battle, trying to keep up with a business idea that took off literally overnight, looking for a new place since where I live is being sold, and making sure I can perform every single morning despite the insane levels of stress I’m under right now. It’s a lot. And for a change, I’m going to give myself a little grace and not self-flagellate like I normally would. I’m going to call this progress.

6. Being able to cowork in an intense way is highly effective for most people.

The best Fixes I’ve done so far have happened in a co-collaborative way. As in, the client is working on their business at the same time that I am. This lets us iterate quickly, knock assets out, and change directions when we need to. When it works, DAMN does it work.

However, this process only really works for people who work well under a deadline, take responsibility for themselves (and do the prep work), and have reasonable expectations over what they (and I) can do in a day. I’m a lot more careful about vetting people now because the only Fix that I wasn’t happy with had much less to do with the work accomplished (which was solid) and much more to do with how I felt after leaving the engagement – which was like I hadn’t been able to exceed expectations (that were pretty unrealistic). Never again.

7. I can learn anything if I’m on a deadline. 

As someone who has built her career on writing, the fact that I do so much design now is kind of mind-boggling to me. And you know what? I’m pretty damn good at it. I learn new shit every Fix, and I’m enjoying it more and more because I’m constantly learning how to make amazing things happen for my clients. I loooove it.

Do you have more questions for me about how the Fixes are coming? Ask me in the comments.

June is filling up fast! You can book your Fix here.

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