What does it mean to go pro? To deliver every day, no matter what. There’s so much ‘advice’ from professional writers about what it means to write. Commit, they say. Every day they say. No matter what, they say.

But what most professional writers fail to account for is that they’re pros. And pros have to deliver. If you’re not a pro and don’t aspire to be, then ‘every day’ doesn’t matter. No matter what doesn’t matter. Committing doesn’t matter. If the act of writing or drawing brings you joy, if you find happiness in being in a state of occasional flow, if it’s a hobby and not a profession, then doing it whenever you want is totally fine.

Everyone will tell you to grow your audience. Focus on subscribers. Get bigger. Increase market share. Be for everybody. Be liked. Be loved.

But nothing gives me more pleasure these days than when I notice someone unsubscribe from my email list. Why? Because it means I’m not for everyone. It means I’m forming a point of view. A strong opinion. I’m picking a side. A side that’s not for everyone. It’s exactly what art is supposed to do.

It’s funny, no one ever asks me how I find the time to brush my teeth or put pants on before I leave the house every day. The question I always get is, how do you find the time to write?

Creating stuff (in my case, writing stories or drawing pictures) seems to be an ‘optional’ activity in the way we think about the world. It has to come after all the boring stuff. Work, commuting, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, bingeing Netflix, catching up on social media. After all, art (and self-expression) is a luxury, isn’t it? And I will admit, that there’s privilege baked into my life, but the people who are asking me about how I find the time to write aren’t the underprivileged, or historically-discriminated groups. That’s a whole different problem.

When the commitment to write or draw becomes a non-negotiable automatic activity, like brushing teeth or wearing pants when I’m in public, it’s no longer about finding time to write, because it’s already there.

Practice doesn’t make perfect; it makes better. Aiming for ‘perfect’ is a problem because every time we practice, we learn. Every time we learn, we improve. Perfect implies an end — a finish line. But when you’re playing an infinite game, the finish line keeps moving forward; your expectations are always a little bit ahead of your skills. It’s not until we realise that perfect is unavailable that we begin to see the real value of Practice.

It’s easy to put limits on ourselves. To see these things as barriers that prevent us from doing what we want to do. My desk is too small. I don’t have enough time. I don’t have a ‘space’. I can’t afford to do art. I can’t draw. But barriers are only barriers if you see them that way.

Of all the mediums, why did I start with watercolour? (Apparently, the most difficult, according to oil painters).

Well, because my desk is too small (for acrylics). I don’t have the luxury of time (that oils demand). I don’t have the ‘space’ (to store artwork that takes too long to dry). I didn’t have a lot of money (to afford canvases, brushes, mediums, etc.).

Watercolour, for me, is the ultimate medium. It dries fast. It doesn’t stain my furniture (much). It only needs a piece of paper, which is lightweight and can be as big or small as your circumstances require. It’s cheap to get started. It’s portable, too.

Barriers are only barriers because we imagine them to be. If we try to use our constraints and see them as shaping us, rather than limiting us, maybe we’ll discover something that fits in with life, but still feeds our soul.

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.