A. F. Grappin
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Routine and a Pep Talk

4/7/2025

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I'm in a very odd position right now. The physicality of my current job is no longer new and so draining, and it's rapidly coming to a point it will be dropping off my radar. At the same time, I'm gearing up for another new temporary gig that I'm very much looking forward to (See you guys at the TN Renaissance Festival in May!)

I am, at my core, a creature of routine. Yet I'm also in need of adventure and unexpected stimulation. I can potentially welcome disruptions to the routine, but not always. It's weird, but then again, so are most people. There are plenty of others out there who are the same way.

Being me, the nature of my current life situation right now has me feeling ever so slightly but constantly off balance. I don't have a regular work schedule right now, so I don't get to plan my days like I would really like to to accommodate the weird ways my brain works. This is, really, good for me, as much as it makes me grumble. For a long time, I was able to whip out a few sentences of writing at the drop of a hat. I could pick up and put down projects when I only had a few minutes to do so. From about 2017 on, though, I really got myself into a sort of... routine rut, I guess. My job and life schedule made it possible for me to carve large chunks of time to devote to creative endeavors.

I have a tendency to weigh everything in my life as a worth/transaction sort of deal. Is it worth the time to set up for this activity if I only get to do it for a few minutes? Do I want to bother getting out my paints if I only have 30 minutes to actually paint? Will I feel like it was worth getting settled in to write even though I only have time to edit one paragraph or write 2 sentences?

I have to keep telling myself that the answer is YES. It is emphatically yes.

​At my core, I am and always have been a creator. It's so hard to talk myself out of thinking I need to maximize my time, or that it's not worth the effort to put myself in the mindset to actually do the creating.

It's time to reclaim what I've let atrophy. It's absolutely worth the effort to crank out one sentence, one line of that drawing, a couple stitches of that project, or whatever it is you're picking at.

The point is not to maximize the creation in hopes of money. It should be for the passion of the creating itself. The making. At least for me, I need to remember how I used to be able to click over into a creative mindset at the drop of a hat when I had a moment. Those big time investments have great value, but so do the little ones.

Even just glancing at a current work-in-progress for a bit can help. It puts it back at the forefront of the mind, lets it stay fresh in perspective.

I didn't start this post with a real goal in mind, but I think I found one. This week, my goal is to at least write a sentence a day. Those days I don't have earmarked for writing, I still need to pull up my writing files and pick at something, just to keep the brainjuices flowing.
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    A. F. Grappin is a general creative who mainly focuses on speculative fiction and crafting.

    ​That's me down there.

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