In year 7, I was asked to write a story for a class assignment. It was a pop-creative-writing task. I ended up writing a derivation of the Jonah and the Whale story from the bible. It was a Catholic school, the class before this one was Religion, so it was the first thing that came to mind. I went with it.

I was an A student. Top of the class in most things, I lived in the top 3 on my worst day with average scores of 90 out of 100. So when I got the mark back for my story, and I got a 55 out of 100, it had an impact.

Twenty years later, I still remember that mark. I remember the teacher, I remember the red ink, I remember the feeling, and I remember making a decision. I made a decision not to write. If I was good at so many other things, then maybe writing was just not ‘my thing’. I hid the story (and the mark) in shame and focussed on science, maths, sport, and computers.

What would have happened if, instead of a mark, I had a conversation? If the teacher approached it with empathy and curiosity and asked, “I can see where this story came from, can you?” If she asked, “The story is too similar to another, how do you think you could change it to make it different?” or “This is great for a first draft, here are a few tips for making it better.”

Instead, it took me 20 years of pursuing everything else *but* writing, before I found my way back. I blogged for a bit, wrote in my day-to-day at work, added captions to silly illustrations I was doing in my spare time. I found myself enjoying the process, so I sought out online resources. I began to study language in my spare time, found clippings of passages from other writers that I liked. I found a passion (and eventually a career) through persistence.

When I was in year 7, I was utterly unequipped to handle negative feedback delivered in a novice way. It’s fair to say that mark changed my life: one teacher, one mark, one comment.

Teachers have immense power in shaping children’s lives, and as with any job, some people are great at it, and some people aren’t. Giving feedback, coaching, and nurturing kids so that they learn from their failure, so that they persist and improve rather than run away, is hard. But it’s worth it.

Some of my happiest, deepest, and most thoughtful moments are when I’m away from the computer. The laptop closed, the mobile phone switched off (or in my weaker moments, in airplane mode). That’s when I sink into a 12-hour flow state attempting to create something new, something physical. My head, hand, and heart, working together, pulling at one another, trying to wrestle control of what ends up on the page.

Immanuel Kant said, “The hand is the window on to the mind.” and Darwin linked greater dexterity of the hand to greater brain capacity in humans. I’ve learned, through simple practice, that I think better when I’m using my hands. Typing (and writing) is one thing, but nothing works quite so well as the physical medium I’ve come to love so dearly.

I know there are many digital illustrators out there who are doing amazing work. And intellectually, I know the digital medium brings a lot positives to the modern-day professional freelance artist. I’ve tried these things. I’ve spent too much money on fast computers and bigger and better graphics tablets. But nothing has been as successful at bringing my head, heart and hands together than the absence of a computer. Maybe it’s the same for other people.

It takes me half a second to Command+Tab and change focus. My computer is a swiss-army knife of distractions. It’s the antithesis of an environment conducive to productive, deep, meaningful work. Command+Tab.

I persist with non-digital work because there’s no Command+Tab. No Ctrl+Z. No way to undo, cover up mistakes, get distracted. When I’m sitting in front of a piece of paper, armed only with my pencils and brushes, there’s focus. I can spend 12 hours a day like this. It’s fun.

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I lack the self-control to stay focused when I’m working in front of a computer? Maybe if I turned off the internet, I would work differently. Or maybe digital is just the wrong medium for me. Maybe the computer wasn’t designed to help me make the sort of art I want to make. It’s great for processing accounts or email correspondence. It’s great for managing the business. Maybe it’s not me after all. Maybe it’s just about using the right tool for the job.

In economics, there’s this idea of disposable income. That is, the money a person has ‘left over’ after all the essentials are taken care of. Once the rent, mortgage, food, heat, travel etc expenses are paid, what you have left is ‘disposable’. Typically, disposable income is spent on leisure activities – eating out, movies, recreational sport and so on.

Maybe time works the same way.

We know we’ve only got 24 hours in a day, and we’ve got some essentials. Sleeping, eating, and working seem to things we can’t avoid. If we have kids, or sick parents, then caring for loved ones falls under this ‘essential’ time. We can try and shorten or skip some of these things sometimes, but in the end, we need a certain amount of rest, food, income, and care to function properly. What’s left, then, is disposable time. And, like disposable income, we spend that on things. Some of us play sport or exercise. Others meditate or practice yoga. Some of us play a musical instrument. Some of us put time and effort in to maintaining and deepening friendships. Some of us binge Netflix, or ‘catch up’ on social media.

The question I get most often is, “how do you find the time to write?”, and now I’m thinking that the answer is, “It’s just how I spend my disposable time.”

Publishing is slow. I sign contracts for things 2 years in advance. When the time to write or illustrate the book comes around, I spend 3-6 months making it. Once I make it, the publisher has to do their bit: design, layout, print, and distribute. The time between signing a contract and having an audience for the book can be almost 4 years. (In Queen Celine’s case, it was two years).

Four years ago, I was a different person. Most of us learn from our experience and, over time, change into new variations of ourselves. Sometimes, the change is transformative (like going from not being a parent, to being a parent), where the person you were before – the things you valued – might be markedly different to those now. But others are gradual or incremental, like becoming a better drawer or painter over time.

So, when someone reviews or critiques a new book when it’s finally released, they’re reviewing and critiquing the skills and experience of a me from four years ago. One that was less skilled and less knowledgeable than the me on the day the book is released. What people don’t know is that I’ve already moved on.

So reviews and critiques come with a grain of salt. Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing how people engage with the work; what they loved or what they didn’t love about it. But a review won’t change the work I choose to make, it can’t, because I’ve left that old me behind and I’m already someone different.

I’ve never been a big ‘documenter’ or ‘archiver’ of things. I think that’s because I know I’ll miss stuff, so the lack of completeness makes it less important some how. But I can’t be sure. I occasionally tend to look back, just not very far, so, under the influence of a friend, I’m giving this yearly wrap-up thing a go to see if it changes anything.

When I looked back, I saw some really weird things. I’ve accidentally consumed a lot about grief, I’ve helped 5 friends think and talk through mid-life crisis questions, I’ve accidentally read 4 books authored by Japanese women, I’ve discovered a deep interest in poetry, I’ve completed 3 picture books, celebrated 10-years of marriage, seen my artwork exhibited publicly, road-tripped with my parents, and I’ve had some incredibly beautiful and important friendships grow. I’ve learned not to see any of these as ‘achievements’ or ‘accomplishments’, they’re just how I’ve spent my time, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Things that made me cry

When I read Charles Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities, I cried. I was in my early 20s. It was the first book that made me cry and there had been no other book since. In fact, it’s really unusual for me to cry about anything really, so, to have so many tears this year has been a completely new experience. To be honest, it actually felt really great to be moved in such a profound way by literature and art.

NB. I know I said grief was a surprise to me this year, but perhaps I should just avoid picking up books that have people who look like they’re in incredible pain on the cover?

Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain

Georgia Blain’s writing was the absolute stand out for me this year. It is beautiful in the most heart-wrenching of ways. When I finished Between a Wolf and a Dog, it became abundantly clear to me what a ‘real writer’ is capable of and made the gap between my own writing and ‘real’ writing starkly obvious. It’s a beautifully woven story about motherhood, sisterhood, marriage, forgiveness, and grief which gives such immense opportunity to explore the depth and perspective of characters that she builds so luminously, with so few words. It’s rich with tenderness, empathy and understanding. Also, that cover!!

A Little Life by Hanya Yanigihara

When I posted online that I was about to read this book, I was inundated with really ‘supportive’ messages from strangers and friends like, “OMG, THIS WILL DESTROY YOU!” It was given to me by the wonderful Jayde from Mary Martin Bookshop who I would let curate my entire life if she had the time. Her reading taste is just exceptional. A Little Life is a beautiful, deep exploration of privilege, grief and friendship that, well, will probably destroy you.

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

I totally judged this book by its cover, which is what made me pick it up. I had no idea what it was about and although it sometimes felt ambling and slow, it was incredibly Dickensian in that it all just came together at the end. It orbits ideas about memory, loss and how we experience reality, but not in the way you think. I don’t want to say too much, because it’s the experience of reading this from cover to cover that makes The Memory Police so special.

Fleabag

Just incredible, more on this later.

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Things that made me laugh

The problem with consuming so much content digitally is that I can’t look at a bookshelf and get a quick overview of everything that’s gone into my brain this year. But, 2019 was the year I discovered graphic novels and the art of the comic strip. These mediums are, right now, inherently non-digital. So, it just means I have a tax-deductible and artistically valid reason to buy more physical books.

Moomin by Tove Jansson

“I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes, and dream!” That pretty much sums Moomin up. Having been addicted to the surrealist animism of Miyazaki’s Ghibli world for many years, Moomin stepped up to the plate and knocked me out the park. It’s gentle, sweet, slow and completely engrossing. I’d be blessed if I could manage access to at least a sliver of Tove Jansson’s imagination.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson: The complete collection

Imagine having to come up with a hilarious joke, every single day, for almost 10 years. That’s over 3500+ jokes, all in about 3-panels. Calvin and Hobbes is a masterclass in so many things. What it means to be a professional cartoonist, a craftsperson, a long-form and short-form storyteller, a philosophical thinker, a cultural critic, and despite the global success of the strip, how to say F*$@! You to licensing your work because the world doesn’t need more lunchboxes or stickers, or tea-towels with your characters embroidered on them. I have so much respect for Bill and his work. His artwork is just stunning, gentle, creative, delicate and beautiful. The moments when I’ve pored over this collection have been nearing on blissful.

Fleabag

Yep, it’s in the section too. More on this later.

The Good Place

The Good Place took me by surprise. I settled in to watch what I thought I would be a pretty simple bit of fluffy TV that I could have on while I did other things. Little did I know I was in for a much more existential journey. For me, it was TV writing at its best – using humour to disarm and relax people so they’re more receptive to the deeper questions this show asks of the viewer. What does it mean to be good? Can you change who you are? Are we all born with a particular personality or are we products of the people and places that touch our lives? Not only that, but The Good Place touches on diversity, anxiety, class, and religiosity with such expert timing, nuance and curiosity that you can’t help but want to find out where it’s all going to go.

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Things that made me think

Those who know me know that I think, a lot. And if the theme of what I’ve been thinking about could be summed up in a word, that word is diversity. I’ve spent a lot of time actively curating my social media so that the walls of my online bubble are thin enough to easily jump through. I’ve spent time actively seeking out people and types of thinking that are in direct opposition to my world view or the status quo. I’ve tried hard to truly listen to what people who aren’t me have to say. Turns out, all of this is really bloody hard. But, I can feel my brain being moulded into something new. The Matt I knew on Jan 1 2019 is a different person to the Matt I now wake up to at the end of 2019, and it’s partly to do with the things that really made me think.

New Philosopher Magazine

A small press out of Tasmania is producing what I think is one of the best magazines in existence right now. It’s beautiful to look at and it’s completely changed the way I think about so much of life. Addressing the vast complexity around questions of change, death, economic growth, and what it means to live a life in balance, New Philosopher feels like the most important thing I’m reading right now, given the stage of life I’m in. It had been years since I’d engaged with a magazine format which, for this type of writing, is completely perfect. A dip-in dip-out experience that plants a new and very valuable seed in my brain every time I pick it up.

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

A few years ago, I was reading a lot of cultural criticism, but the essays were always through the narrow lens of my profession, or, even worse, the tall white men who typically dominate the platform. I’ve been reluctant to re-engage with essays because I’ve fallen so deeply for fiction and it’s power to massage not just my brain, but my interiority. But, on a recommendation of a friend, Trick Mirror arrived and reminded me what an essay (or many essays) are capable of that fiction just cannot always accomplish. Jia’s writing is incredibly engaging, insightful and commanding. She writes with equal parts authority and humility, weaving her personal stories and deep, factual research together with ease. Admittedly, the essays are SO good that this book will see me through 2020 (I’ve only read half so far), because like with most brilliant essayists, their words need time so that your brain can re-adjust itself along the way.

Twitter: Mariah Driver and Aubrey Blanche

As my relationship with the toxic aspects of social media evolved this year, I’ve found a few shining lights on Twitter. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort curating who is in my feed as I try my best to continually burst the bubbles that the algorithms are creating on my behalf. Mariah Driver and Aubrey Blanche are simply exceptional people. Whether it’s their own writing or the stuff they amplify, both of them are making me a better human. I’ve learned SO much about how to talk about diversity and inclusion at work and about the lived experiences of historically-discriminated-against people. I’ve got a long way to go, but 2019 felt like the first baby steps toward a deeper understanding of people who aren’t me.

Adam Grant’s Work/Life

I can’t remember how I found out about this podcast but boy it’s been insightful. Adam is an organizational psychologist and, in this podcast, he goes inside some of the most interesting and progressive workplaces on the planet to analyse, discuss, and share the unique ways in which these workplaces are doing some amazing things. One of my favourites was his insight into Pixar and how they use the power of a bunch of people who didn’t fit in, to make one of the most popular animated films of all time.

Fleabag

Yep, here too. I know. Just keep reading.

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Laugh & Think & Cry

There are some inputs that I simply couldn’t categorize. It doesn’t make them more or less important, but as I’m writing this to my future self, it’s important they’re marked as beginning in 2019. They’ve been transformative.

Poetry

This year has been the year that I’ve prioritised poetry in my life. (It still feels weird to say). I’ve always seen poetry as something of an ‘other’. Not for me. Who’s got the time? Or the patience? Who can be bothered, right?

But I started. I started small, based on the advice of my incredibly generous and knowledgeable literary agent. She’s been feeding me books for years that, to be honest, have largely sat on the bookshelf. So it wasn’t until she said, “poetry is like music, you don’t need to know how to play the cello to know that you like the sound of it,” that the floodgate released. I was no longer trapped behind the idea of poetry.

Poetry became about a gentle exploration of the written language. I would not like all poetry, and that’s OK, I just needed to find out what I liked. Two books gave me a way in – A Book of Luminous Things and Life Support: 100 poems to reach for on dark nights. It was so special to have this experience that I even spent time writing about how others might find their way into this magical world of language.

Since then, I’ve started an online poetry archive called Words Like This with my wife to capture and present poetry in a beautiful way in the hope that it will encourage others to do the same. It means we’re both travelling on this journey through language together and it’s created a forum for us to talk in a way that we’ve never talked before. This year, the poems I still think about on a weekly are basis are Moss Gathering, The Social Behaviour of Minted Peas, and Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.

Fleabag

OK, so now it’s time to talk about Fleabag. I won’t go into too much depth about how I only watched this a few months ago, whilst staying in a prison for 5 days, because that’s a whole other story, but the timing is important. Fleabag, in a single show, seems to have summed up my entire year. It acted like a gravitational nucleus, bringing together so many thoughts and feelings that had been orbiting my brain for the year.

Fleabag seems to have covered everything. From my weird obsession with grief, family, marriage, and parenthood this year, to my growing understanding of what it’s like to live in the world as someone who doesn’t have the same privilege as me. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s writing had me completely engrossed with anticipation; there were moments that I found myself laughing almost hysterically and, in the next second, in tears from sadness. It was SO intense, and SO fast, that it begged a second and third watch (the fourth one will likely happen in 2020). How anyone writes something with such intensity across the entire emotional spectrum, with such wit, such poignancy and truth, is completely beyond me. It’s been utterly inspirational, both as a professional writer and just another human trying to make it through life with the same fears, dreams, and most importantly, a sense of hope, as everyone else.

Of all the lessons this year, Fleabag probably taught me the most important and simplest one – speak less and listen more, even if I’m not a Hot Priest.

It’s easy for people who don’t need to risk it all to advise others to do it instead. After all, it’s the romance of it, isn’t it? Imagine giving a friend some advice to leave their day job and follow their growing interest in making art. Imagine they achieve the impossible – a full-time, well-paid career in the arts? “You can do it,” you said. “Just believe in yourself!” Maybe you could be the one that said, “If you don’t do it now, you never will,” or, “If you don’t cut yourself off from your day job, are you really committing to the practice?”

But maybe it’s possible to be all-in, without needing to be all-in. Maybe all-in means 300 words a week on your novel while you go to work, feed your family, and care for your sick mother. Maybe all-in is 300 words a month, because life is complicated and hard, and we weren’t all born with the same privilege. Maybe all-in is not right now, but later, when things get a bit easier.

All-in, like risk, is relative. What all-in means to one, is different from another. When they’re your chips that you’re risking, it matters more. You can still be all-in on your art, without having to rely on it to pay your bills. In fact, it might be the best way.

I have a friend who is an amazing baker. She makes sourdough bread for her family, religiously, every couple of days. She puts all her love and care into it. Because she’s practising so often, it’s soft, fluffy, and most of all, delicious. It’s good enough to sell.

But she doesn’t need to sell it. Her ‘market’ is a 3-year old boy and a 35-year-old man. She makes them happy, every day, with the bread that she bakes. But, the nagging feeling persists. This could be bigger. She could make more people happy with her baking, so why not?

If she had more customers, she’d have to make many more loaves. She could get even better at baking than she is now. But to scale, she’ll need to work more efficiently. Weekly trips to the market to chat with the supplier and pick up the small amount of flour she normally needs won’t do. She’ll need to order ingredients in bulk. And people won’t come to her house to pick up bread. For that, she’ll need a store. And the number of customers are likely to fluctuate each day, so she’ll need to learn how much to make, what the average is. She’ll need the average amount of ingredients, she’ll need to sell it at an average price (because people won’t buy sourdough for $20 a loaf), and she’ll need an average location – one that makes it easy for as many customers as possible to swing by and pick up a loaf.

Being able to make amazing sourdough and being able to sell it, are two different things. As we scale, we need to find efficiencies. That’s how McDonald’s did it. So maybe my friend doesn’t need to sell it at all. Maybe her 2 customers are enough. Maybe the ability to make such beautiful bread is only possible because she’s not selling it. When does a craft lose its craft-ness? Just because people would buy it, doesn’t mean you need to sell it.

Most people I know think they’re going to be robbed. They put locks on their doors, carry valuables close to them, they’re always on high alert. But you can’t store an idea behind a locked door. An idea behind a locked door isn’t that useful. If the idea isn’t shared, then perhaps it never existed in the first place.

I once asked a famous architect whether they were scared of being copied. Once they designed that new fancy chair or kettle, what would stop someone taking those designs and just copying them, flooding the market with cheap reproductions and diluting his work?

He responded in two parts:

Firstly, he said the people who are interested in his ideas, aren’t interested in the reproductions of them. The people that buy his objects, aren’t interested in the chair or the kettle, they’re interested in the story behind it. They want an original. If they’re the sort of person who buys a reproduction, they were never his customer in the first place.

Secondly, he said that by the time the copies would have been manufactured, he’s already moved on to something new. By the time the cheap knock-offs hit the market, it’s an old idea, and so they’re worth far less then something new from him. He said, “I dare them to just try and catch me.”

This architect knew that it wasn’t the object that was the valuable bit, it was his honed ability to think differently from everyone else. To spend time and energy interpreting the world, and re-inventing it. Over and over again. That’s what his buyers bought. The chair or the kettle was secondary, very secondary.

Often, when new writers approach me to illustrate their work they’ll ask me to sign a non-disclosure agreement before they share their manuscript. And I get it, they want to protect their idea. If a ‘professional’ saw this idea and thought it was great, they could just steal it and pass it off as their own, right? But what new writers don’t realise is that’s a great problem to have. If you’ve got an idea that people want to steal and make their own, your on to something. But, if you can’t have another, and then another, and then another, like the architect I talked about, then you’re not a writer. You’re just a person who had an idea. You’re exposed.

Until writers realise that the words on the page aren’t the important bit, it’s difficult to make progress. If you’re scared that this is the only idea you’ll ever have, you tend to protect it with your life so you don’t share it, which means it’s hard to get feedback. If you can’t get feedback, you can’t improve it, so the idea dies.

But, if in sharing your idea, someone copies your first one, then you know it was good. Someone liked it. And if you’ve got ten others waiting in the wings, then you’re on to something. It’s going to be very hard for anyone to catch you too, when you’re writing like this, because you’ve already left them behind.

I’m a big believer in the power of clothes. What we wear sends signals to the people around us. Clothes can communicate who we are, how much money we make, what mood we’re in, and what job we do.

When some people go to work, they wear a uniform. Chefs, pilots, and plumbers all wear uniforms. When we see people dressed in those uniforms, we know how to behave around them. What a ‘normal’ interaction should be. But, artists have historically said no to uniforms (after the whole beret thing died down). After all, the clothes we wear can also be used to express ourselves, and that should *not* have rules, right?

But everyone wears a uniform, whether they like it or not. I can’t go to a school workshop dressed in an expensive suit. It’d be too weird. The kids wouldn’t know how to behave, nor would the teachers, no matter how engaging I was. People would likely stiffen up. Maybe be a bit more formal. Creative people are supposed to be sneakers and jeans type of people, aren’t they? Relaxed. Or they’re supposed to wear shirts and dresses with colourful patterns, bright colours, or cute animals on them. Even if 50% of the work of being an artist is spent doing paperwork and managing finances, we’re still expected to ‘look creative’.

Well, it turns out that what we wear not only changes the way people around us behave, but it changes us, too. It’s been proven that if we wear a white scientist’s lab coat, we’re able to concentrate for longer periods of time. That’s weird, isn’t it?

I hear creative people struggle with balancing the creative work with the work of running a business. Procrastination. Boredom. Block. I hear plenty of remedies for these things – go for a run, take a walk, have a shower, just forget about it for a while. But what if all we needed to do was put on a different jacket or shirt? What if I wore a business shirt while I did my accounts? What if I wore a painter’s apron when I was looking to explore new colour palettes? Maybe that’s worth a try, instead. Maybe we need to just dress for the occasion.