What Am I Working On Right Now?
on productivity in parenthood, and projects I can't really show you
I’ve been struggling to think of what new work to share with all of you.
Is one of the most frequent questions I receive. From followers, colleagues, family, and friends. It’s always supportive, genuine, well intended, and a totally understandable thing to ask, that I often reciprocate. In the past I’ve been eager to receive the question, excited for an opportunity to gush and ramble all about my latest projects. But over the last two and a half years of parenthood, it’s one that increasingly strikes me with a jolt of panic and shame.
I want to say. Because it often feels as if no matter how much I’m able to achieve, my to-do list looms so large and daunting that each individual task starts to feel like a futile drop in an ever deepening bucket.
The real answer, is actually lots of things.
But my progress on them has felt so painfully slow, especially as someone whose identity, (I’m increasingly realizing) has been deeply intertwined with very tangible manifestations of creative productivity for almost my entire life. I’ve often felt over the last two and a half years, like I’m failing, at both parenthood and work. Floundering without enough time and energy to commit to either one as much as I’d like.
I don’t think my parents, or anyone else, specifically, directly encouraged me to be “productive” growing up. But when I was, it was often called attention to and praised.
My ability to loose myself in the creative void for hours on end and come out with stacks of drawings and paintings, is a badge I’ve worn proudly for as early as my memory extends, and one that I’ve found difficult to unlearn measuring my value against, in spite of all the “reject internalized capitalism!!” rhetoric I’ve attempted to combat it with. But the scarcity of time to work, that comes with parenthood (at least for me) has dealt this pride a major blow. Which in turn has sent me into a tailspin of an identity shift.
My husband and I are incredibly lucky to have family in town to regularly provide childcare, as well as the ability to pay for more. But even still, going from working over 40hrs a week, to working 20-26 at most, has been a shock. Especially because even during the hours I do have;
And that relief feels destabilizing, having built so much of myself around my ability to “swim” until now. Like, who am I, if I, like Moomintroll says, “only want to live in peace and plant potatoes and dream”?
And it’s not that I’m not excited about all the projects I’m working on.
I am.
It’s not that I’m not buzzing with new creative ideas that I’m itching to get into.
I am.
It’s not that I don’t feel financial pressure, and the weight of the responsibility of everything I’ve taken on,
I do.
But it feels like some essential, motivational light inside, has dimmed.
Just like the myth of the body “bounce back” after pregnancy, I’m realizing that I’ve also internalized the idea that my work capacity would somehow “bounce back” too. Assuming that at some point, maybe after the first year, I’d just magically manage to get a more than full time job’s worth of work done in a fraction of the time I once had, and with an exponentially higher mental load. But just like the fallacy of returning to a “pre-baby body”, I’m finding this too, to be false. And actually, unwanted.
I don’t want the marks of my daughter’s 40 weeks in my body erased.
And I don’t want a return to 40+ hour work weeks, at least right now.
I just want less on my plate. Which feel like a difficult thing to reconcile with the need to make a living, and the reality of just having a lot on my plate right now, that I’ve already committed to.
And I don’t want to sound all woe-is-me-I’m-just-too-in-demand or something. I recognize that to have all these opportunities is an incredible gift. I don’t take the privilege of having all this work lightly. In fact that awareness sometimes adds to my overwhelm. I also don’t want to come off as if I don’t like all of the things I’m working on. I really do, and I don’t want any editor or client reading this (👀😅) to feel responsible in any way for this unfolding identity crisis of sorts. It really isn’t the individual projects themselves.
It’s just that in this new season of my life, work, in general, and my relationship with it, feels fraught, and changed, and insurmountable on a level that I don’t think pre-parent, or even immediately postpartum me, could ever have fully anticipated and understood, even if I was warned. Which to be fair, I probably was.
Anyhow. What a ramble. This brings me to the showing you all the projects I’m working on part, which is hard because, I honestly can’t show you much at all, which is a whole OTHER to piece of this struggle I mentioned in the first line of this post.
I currently have 4 books under contract, two of which I’m in final art stages of, but neither of which have been publicly announced. SO I can’t really say much about them, but I’ll show you two sneak previews WIPs here:
The two other books, are my two Little Witch Hazel sequels, which HAVE been announced, but are slowly simmering in the background. The manuscript for the first one is done, and I’m hoping (only slightly delusionally) to finish sketches for it before I go on maternity leave in mid-January.
AND…of course, I also have two other projects that are very exciting but very top secret. SORRY!!!! Feel free to make wild guesses in the comments.
OH! And I’ve been making some new products. And sprucing up some old ones. But more on that next time… Because:
(FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS) A sneak preview and rundown of all the products coming to my shop this Fall/Winter! And maybe… a discount code??? Stay tuned.
Alright. Thanks for bearing with this long post. Before I go, here is:
I just finished reading The Dark Wives which is the latest book in the Vera Stanhope series by Ann Cleeves. I snap up and binge-listen to every new Ann Cleeves mystery the second they come out. Which isn’t to say I don’t often have mixed feelings about them, especially the way the protagonist, Vera’s, fat body, and the fat bodies of others, are described throughout the series (it’s not nearly as bad as the Gamache books though, phew!). But I have to say, I noticed it talked about FAR less in this book, and I’m curious if that was a conscious choice on Ann’s part or not. Feel free to discuss in the comments if you read these books!
Like everyone else I’m extremely excited about the Great British Bake Off starting this month, but I’m also stoked about the new Taskmaster too! I mean, Andy Zaltzman?? As a Bugle listener this is basically like my Superbowl.
Peter and I just started watching this incredible old tv show Children of the Stones, with our friends, which is like, Wickerman Jr. but make it low budget tv? Highly recommend.
I finally found a used pair of these cute Beatrice Valenzuela clogs in dark green on Poshmark, but just as I feared, they are for someone whose foot has as much volume as a communion wafer. Anyone with thin feet want a pair of size 10 clogs in forest green?
I felt very seen by this piece. My kids are almost 8 and 5 and I still haven’t felt any desire to return to 40 hour weeks. This is the first year they are both at school 5 days and I find myself still rebelling against the capitalist productivity and wanting to relish some rest. I maxed out at working 20-25 hours when I returned to work after staying home with my kids-18 months with my first and then ultimately 13 months with second (but that was pandemic time so it felt much longer- he went to our childcare center at 7 months old for 8 days before the school shut down).
Thank you for sharing your projects! I will be excited to read them all when they are ready, and I will reread your other books while I am waiting.
You are so not alone in these challenges. I’m no where near being a successful author and artist but there is always the challenge of how do I want to spend my time, how do I need to spend my time, how do I make time for all the things. And how do I find value in what I don’t isn’t all productivity?