Consider this blogpost more of a train of thought than anything else. I have been working in the quiet hours of the morning, (4am if you’re curious,) for a few months now, basically preparing for the long journey ahead that is creating a career as a writer, illustrator, and general online content creator.

The road has not been easy, and there is still much to learn — there will always be much to learn, (this is one thing I know for certain in life.) However, I owe the people who might wonder about my well-being a much needed update, so to all those caring individuals, whom I am so fortunate to call friends, this is a “check-in,” made just for you.

Life is A-Ok.

For the record, life is as good as one might expect, considering I am still a full-time Doordasher, still living with my parents, and still traversing the hills and valleys of mild (and thankfully,) short-lived bouts of depression.

Regardless, I am still wide eyed with hope that things will change eventually, if not by a miracle, than at least as a direct and inevitable result of my patience, persistence, and hard work.

Don’t give up on me.

Despite what my silence on the blog might suggest, I have been grinding away, daily. The books are still on the forefront of my mind, and so is the font project, as well as the idea that I will share this journey on social media. Let’s just say I changed my plan of action a bit.

Learning to pivot.

I am actively, and organically learning, day by day, what is going to work for me and what will not. I’m also learning to say goodbye, (and say it QUICKLY,) to the things that are no longer working so that I have room for the right things to come into the picture.

I hereby, formally reserve the right to pick up or cancel any given idea I’ve come across, no matter how excited by it I may have seemed in the beginning stages of that particular endeavor, and I sincerely hope you will continue to follow my journey, despite how sporadic I might seem at times. Think of me as Erin Brockovich, disappearing from the office for long periods of time, and coming back with an entire box of files on Hinkley.

This is just the way I work sometimes… maybe not forever, but definitely for now.

So… where have I been? What have I actually been up to?

A Change of Direction.

Well, a few months ago, I realized, (and have now made the firm decision,) that regularly scheduled, lengthy blogposts are not exactly the ideal forum for which to carve the creative path I want to be on.

But I had to actually pursue that format in order to come to any final realization, and I suspect that will be the case with most of the avenues I take on this creative journey.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy having a blog.

I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about the general aesthetic look of a well-formatted blogpost that I just find SO. DAMN. ADORABLE. And because of that attraction, I don’t think I could ever give up completely on the idea of maintaining a blog of my own.

But as I was posting and sharing to facebook during the first half of the year, I began to realize quickly, that what I crave is something more — something that connects with people, and builds a deeper connection with them — something that more naturally lends itself to a larger community, and a greater capacity to build a following, (and if I’m perfectly honest, a steady income of some sort.)

Yes, I will keep the blog, but, as if the last few months weren’t indicator enough, it will not be the mother ship of this journey.

After a difficult July, I set full sail toward the second half of August, and as I began to let passion lead the way, I came to the decision that not only do I want to create a Youtube channel more than ever, but that I want that channel to be the main vessel I use to share all of this — not a blog.

So I abruptly postponed basically everything I was doing, and began diligently throwing ALL of my focus into the preparation and development of that.

Kindof…

Truthfully, I’m not sure what I’m doing at this point. You see, in preparing to create a youtube channel, I began to have a recurring thought…

Between a day job, aspiring writing career, and constantly trying to overcome my natural tendency to be a reticent person and actually share what I’m doing on social media, my dream was seeming nearly impossible — WAYY too much work for one person to accomplish on their own.

How the f@*# do content creators juggle it all? More importantly, HOW WILL I juggle it all? That question became a mystery that I simply HAD to get to the bottom of.

So I did what any sane and sensible person would do in my position — I went and got sidetracked again, by yet another creative escapade. More specifically, I stumbled upon the discovery of an AMAZING, FREE (although I graduated to the paid version, which is still quite cheap for what it offers,) app commonly used by content creators to organize basically ALL. THE. THINGS.

The app is called Notion, maybe you’ve heard of it.

Basically, Notion is a database and note-taking app, that assists in creating workspaces for learning, saving information, planning & building major projects, among a myriad of nearly endless other uses, (like creating my very own self-taught writing school, perhaps?)

Falling down the rabbit hole.

I’ve now spent months deep-diving into Notion. In fact, aside from my day job, it’s the ONLY thing I’ve been focused on the last six months.

At this time, I wouldn’t call myself a “Notion Master,” but let’s just say I’ve gone from complete novice to veritable expert in the time since disappearing from the blog this summer, and for good reason — my personal discovery of Notion is a BIG DEAL.

I’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg, and I can already tell that Notion is and will continue to be the linch pin connecting everything in my life and career, and I can easily see myself sharing A LOT about it a lot in the future. Who knows, maybe I’ll even put this newfound Notion knowledge into good use, and eventually market some of these planners I’ve created. Let me know what you think about that idea in the comments below.

Final Thoughts.

This blogpost is basically a vomitous mess of my current thoughts, (mostly excuses for my absence,) and likely, the same can be said for the pictures I’ve included.

For now, I’ll refrain from going into any depth explaining what is going on in these pictures, or details of what the scenes contained within them are culminating toward. Just know there is absolutely something brewing in the creative arena of my life — something I still haven’t quite mastered, or even fully conceptualized.

Please, simply consider this another teaser of what the future holds for my colorful, magical world, while I continue to process my thoughts, and configure this new approach to building my story, both on the page, and in life.

That’s all for now, but more updates are coming. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next post.