"Get thaat fiirst thiiing dooone and it'll spuuurr yoooouuu on foooor the rest of the stuuufff.... stuuuff... stuufff"
That was me echoing saveloy and sfd's earlier comments. Working on a few things at once can be really useful, particularly if it's related work where you can get cross-fertilisation, but you need that momentum to start with.
I also find that once you start being busy you can crank up the work rate even as it becomes more tiring/ burdensome, and that also, in a funny kind of way, if your work becomes almost a hindrance, in the sense that you have to sacrifice other things for it, it increases the importance you attach to it and therefore your determination to make it worthwhile.
I'll explain how that works for me: i graduated from a fine art degree one year ago, and being unable to support myself as an artist (surprise surprise!) I do an admin job four days a week. i also spend a lot of time in working in my studio, which has in the past led to arguments between me and my girlfriend, with her saying that she doesn't see me enough, or me feeling like a lonely sap when I've been working on something in full knowledge that my friends are out drinking. This leads to me thinking "well if I'm going to piss off my favourite person by doing this I'd better make damn sure I'm not doing it for nothing", and while I'm obviously unable to produce as much work as I could when I was in college, I feel that what I'm doing now is much more focused and has far greater plausibility as an eventual career.
Also, re temping jobs - I am sitting here right now and so don't want to have to do this, or anything like it, for more than a few years, and I only have one possible means of escape. Again this is to do with the significance you give to your work. Mordant, would it help you to see a similar opposition between the temping you do and your personal projects? I'd recommend going for some office work if you can get it, it can be a lot less stressful and you can use the office facilities for your own shit. Most admin temping jobs are no-brainers and I'm sure you could get all your work done and spend time writing while ptretending to work or whatever. i have on my hard drive here a 14-page comic which has been done entirely in stolen moments.
Shit, i don't even know whether to post this now, I hope it's not going to read as a smug, self-satisfied rant. It's not intended as such - read it as someone who had to give himself a kick up the arse describing what the impact felt like.
oh yeah, sfd, really liked your anecdote about the group of "bohemians". Recognised myself in there too, you betcha.
"Fear not the man who boasts by night, but the man who rises early in the morning" |
