Copper made her way to the libraries second floor. Bookshelves had collapsed across a number of games tables.
Chess pieces were strewn across the floor. Decks of cards had been scattered in ways that would have made magicians weep. Scrabble boards had been snapped in half, throwing their letters into an alphabet soup over every surface.
Once past the Scrabble boards, she let out a sigh of relief. It was all fun and games until somebody lost an ‘I’.
As copper stripped any salvageable parts from the PC, Iron continued browsing the books.
She found her way into the automotive section. Books lined the
shelves with titles relating to cars, motorcycles, tractors and
engines. She pulled a book off the shelf titled “A beginners guide
to starting combustion engines.”
The boat capsized and her limp body plunged into the water.
The only thing she’d felt since the initial sting, aside from creeping paralysis, was a wriggle beneath her skin. Like worms were burrowing through her flesh.
Its tendrils took hold of her body, and she began a gradual descent towards the maw of the beast. She was almost grateful to the sea that filled her lungs. Taking her life before the creature had its meal.
They found their way to the library where Copper spotted a lone computer. She pulled out her tools and got to work deconstructing it.
Iron wandered up the aisles of books. “Don’t go too far,” called Copper. Irons claws were nimble enough to open a book, but not sharp enough to turn the pages with accuracy. Tilting her head sideways, she read the book titles.
‘Scotch; The History of Sellotape.’ She debated having a read, but she knew she’d never find the beginning.
T-shirt Tuesday is becoming a thing here on the Fears…
OK, one thing I’ve been trying to do with my Threadless store is mix up the designs a bit. Rather than just straight up characters I wanted something more t-shirty. I have three new ones this week along with Spiders, that was released a few weeks back but never got announced.
They headed into the stationary room and nudged open the doors to the
connected classrooms. Copper walked through the history classroom.
Irons opinion of the school lowered dramatically. Scanning the walls, she noticed a poster with the heading ‘Great Rulers’. She dismissed it as uninformative when saw no mention of the Helix 30cm Shatterproof.
My always sceptic says if it were that easy we’d all be rich and published and wouldn’t need to be motivational speakers in a van down by the river…
I’m kinda with Phil there. If it really was easy, we’d all be doing it.
There’s the rub. I personally feel anyone can ‘do it’. But very few people will. The biggest issues I face are drive and time management.
So, on drive. People see what I do, thinking it takes a few hours a week of doodling and writing. Then they say ‘hey, I can do that’. But then their not willing to put in the hours of promoting to local businesses, local papers, sharing to Buzzfeed and BoredPanda. Standing at car boots and markets, getting drowned in the rain, trying to sell prints. Going to shows trying to find clients to work for. Submitting to magazines and getting turned down over and over and over. The demoralizing graft. A lot of that’s less fun. It takes grit. Self-employment is rarely the happy-go-lucky care-free life people imagine. It sure as heck isn’t what’s on Instagram.
So, yes. Anyone can ‘do it’. But few folks will.
On time management, well, that’s a whole separate issue. In my experience, it can make or break you. If you can’t get your poop together and set out plans for your days and weeks, you just aren’t going to make it.
Personally, I use an A4 diary to make rough plans for what I need to do daily. More checklists than anything. But pen and paper help cement tasks in my head more than digital alternatives.
I use pomodairo type techniques. 50 minutes of work followed by 10 minutes break. Enough time for a pee and a fresh brew of tea. (shameless “Drink Tea” tenuous link to Threadless: https://littlefears.threadless.com/ )
#NoShame
So, I usually run that system from 7 am to 1 pm, break for an hour for lunch. Then work from 2 pm to 6 pm. I often come back in the evening as well. It’s a long day!
This week, I’ve been looking for digital time-management assistance again. Turns out, on Skillshare, there are two free classes from the Todoist team.
The first I’ve done before. I really enjoyed this class. It’s not 100% Todoist centric. It’s more about getting into the right mindset managing your time more productively. I can’t stress how important mindset is if you’re hoping to go self-employed as a writer, blogger, artist, poet and music maker.
This course is more Todoist-centric. It revolves around building a daily routine and task list. More like habit building, if that makes sense?
I can appreciate habit building courses. The first hour of my day is set in stone. Publish the morning’s story. Reply to comments on LittleFears.co.uk. Check if there are any relevant hashtags during the day I can get into with an old story on Twitter (such as #NationaChocolateDay). Go over everything in my diary for a given day and schedule all the work into 50-minute blocks.
If that first hour goes off without a hitch, I can smash through work like the Hulk punches holes in toilet paper. It gets me into the right mental place and I’m away! If I miss my morning routine, my whole day goes to pot.
For some of us, habits are essential.
So, those links again. These courses are free. Just sign up for a free account, ignore anything that asks you for a subscription option. Go to the course page and give them a whirl.
Little Fears 