Pretty Things
When I first started having the inkling that I may not want to write romance novels anymore, at least not as the all-consuming full-time job it once had been for a decade, I was terrified.
There was no back-up plan.
This was wildly terrifying on two fronts.
The first: Money. Obviously. I essentially quit my job.
But I can figure that out. What keeps me up at night isn’t that I have no idea how to pay rent. It’s that I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I wanted to be an author more than anything for literally my entire life, and suddenly that drive was gone.
Losing your job is stressful. Losing your purpose is devastating.
I’m about a year-ish into the journey. There have been plenty of steps forward. A few steps back.
I’ve always naturally gravitated towards Essentialism—the idea of putting all of your energy in one direction. And yet here I am in my early forties, desperate to put my energy in a single direction but not knowing which direction.
And though I’m slowly beginning to release the idea that I must have one single thing replace my former passion for writing romance novels, I still have no idea what that looks like. I have a lot of skills, a lot of interests, and no idea how to package any of that into a new career. A new vocation.
Whenever I spiral into a deep existential crisis (which is often), Anth always asks the simplest of questions:
What do you want to do?
Without thinking, I always respond with the simplest of answers.
I want to create pretty things.
I love designing minimal websites. Typography-first designs. Vision boards, wallpapers, logos, brand boards. I like to take concepts I love (astrology, tarot, digital gardens, slow living, commonplace books) and package them in an aesthetically minimalist and pleasing way. Book covers, pins, mood boards.
Which then sends me into a slightly panicked “business plan mode.” What does that look like? A creative studio?” Maybe. Possibly. But I’ve done client work before and spent 95% of my time creating stuff that pleased the client, but that was the opposite of what I thought of as “pretty things.” Next!
A template shop? Aren’t there enough of those out there? Etsy’s wildly crowded with people seeing Canva templates for $2.47. Next!
Or …
Am I …
Stalling.
Spending so much time thinking about what to do with the skill/passion, that I’m not actually doing anything at all.
So today … I did. I made stuff. I made pretty things with no agenda other than the creative process.
The first is a graphic I made to remember our meal from yesterday, in one of my favorite fonts. Simple. Lovely.
Below that is a wallpaper I made for July for my laptop and phone. If you want to download them for your own use, you’re welcome to.
For now, I’m just going to make pretty things. Maybe I need to let the creative process lead me, and not the other way around.
Yesterday’s menu.
July Desktop Wallpaper
{ download }
July Phone Wallpaper
{ download }
