Author: Ian

Non-Creative Things I Do to De-Stress: Jigsaw Puzzles

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In this occasional series, I’ll be looking at some non-creative, non-work things I do that both relax me and mentally prepare me to start back on creative work.  Work stuff is important, but non-work stuff matters too.

When I was a kid I did jigsaw puzzles I assembled on a sheet of plywood under my bed.  This was between late elementary school and early high school, when I got good enough to put together the 500- and 1000-piece landscapes and illustrations my family had amassed over a generation, and that I regularly got for Christmases and birthdays.  I’d assemble each puzzle over a period of weeks (or, as I got busier, months), working for stretches of an hour or two while listening to music.

Over the years I honed the steps necessary for doing puzzles quickly and efficiently: browsing through the box to find the edge pieces, trying likely matches first, putting together Continue reading »

Stay-at-Home COVID-19 Creative Work Schedule!

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If you’ve read my earlier posts on Coronavirus in Japan, you may recall that cases here have progressed more slowly than in the States, and there haven’t been nearly as many.  Schools have been almost entirely closed since early March, and they’re slated to stay closed until the end of May at least.  In Toyama, most businesses are still open, albeit with limited hours and fewer customers, and most people seem to be practicing safe social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand sanitizing.

I too have been working from home since early April, and have started to understand what my friends and family back home are dealing with.  Not leaving your house…kind of sucks, especially when your house is a three-room apartment and you spend most of your day sitting on a tatami mat floor. Continue reading »

It’s About Prioritizing: An Interview with Haley Alt

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Haley Alt is a dystopian YA author whose three novels have sold more than 10,000 copies on Amazon under the name H. Alt.  (The first half of her fourth novel, Godless, is available for free on Wattpad.)  She recently moved back to the States after almost eight years in Japan, where she taught English, worked at a travel agency, and promoted sightseeing and did English translation for the town of Tateyama in Toyama.  I met her through my work on the TRAM art and culture zine, and sat down with her at a Starbucks in the suburbs of Toyama City, where we talked about religion, her upcoming move back to America, how scary it is when people actually read your work, and how Tom Cruise helped her sell a lot of eBooks. Continue reading »

Non-Creative Things I Do to De-Stress: The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross

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I talk a LOT about work on this blog, so to switch things up I’ll be talking about some non-work stuff that impacts the work stuff in different ways.  In this ongoing series I’ll go in-depth about some distinctly non-work stuff I do to enrich my life and de-stress—things that put me in better shape for when it’s time to sit down and do the work stuff again.

Let’s get one thing straight: I love Bob Ross.

I used to watch The Joy of Painting as a kid on weekend afternoons, when I’d flip through the channels and always catch episodes at the halfway point.  (As a result, I don’t recall ever seeing Bob Ross actually paint a sky.)  I was fascinated by Bob’s soft, gentle voice, and his amazing landscapes: the sharp mountains cutting into the sky, the puffy evergreen trees, the reflective lakes, the multicolored rocks, and even his red-roofed shacks. Continue reading »

Thoughts on Harnessing Your Creativity During COVID-19 (Or Not….)

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If you’re like me, you’ve been spending a lot more time at home lately, which is both a good and a bad thing.

It’s bad because we’re missing out on a lot of cool stuff, including events, vacations, hangouts with friends, and even the simple pleasures of being in public spaces like restaurants, coffee shops, or (for me) the town library.  Being cooped up inside for too long can also have some pretty nasty effects on our mental health, and that’s not cool either.

On the flip side, more time at home is good because it gives you a lot more of that precious commodity known as Time.  Even if you’re working from home and telecommuting keeps you just as busy, you’re still eliminating your actual commuting time, which adds up fast.  So that should mean that Continue reading »

I Signed a Book Contract…That Got Cancelled Due to COVID-19

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In the words of every SNL host ever: What a week it’s been.

This week I was planning on posting some really Good News…that’s since turned into Bad News.

The Good News is that two months ago I got an email from one the small presses I’d sent MFA Thesis Novel (my novel about grad school life) to.  The email said they enjoyed my book and wanted to publish it.  The email was really short, so at first I wasn’t sure if I’d understood it correctly—but when I realized they were serious, I fell into a state of cautious ecstasy for the next few days.  The email came in the middle of some other life shit I was dealing with that month, so the uncertainty of those first few emails added a lot of extra stress to an already difficult time.

Eventually the press sent me a publishing contract, Continue reading »

Support Creators and Small Businesses You Care About During the COVID-19 Crisis

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I live in rural Toyama, Japan, where as of this writing there still haven’t been any confirmed cases of Coronavirus.  All the stores, restaurants, and other businesses are open as usual, with the exception of special events and large gatherings.  The rest of the world, though, doesn’t have it so lucky.

Back in the States, as I’m sure you’re aware, a lot of stuff is closed, and is expected to stay closed for a while.  And while the government’s approved a $2.2 trillion dollar economic package to help out just about every sector of the economy, a fair amount of that money is actually going to huge multibillion dollar corporations.  Even with the extra help, small businesses and independent contractors are still going to have a rough time.

The Great Recession that happened after 2008 was a rough time for a lot of people, including me—I needed a full-time job when I got back from Japan and had a lot of trouble finding one.  Then, when I finally got one, the pay was pretty mediocre, and it was hard for me to Continue reading »

Sometimes I Have Adventures in Japan, Series 11

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…except not so much right now in these times of Coronavirus precaution.  Since my last update on Coronavirus in Japan, the number of COVID-19 cases hasn’t exploded like it has in a lot of other countries, and as of this writing, around 1,800 cases have been confirmed here.  That’s far less than in the U.S. and a lot of other countries that have been hardest hit.  The exact reasons for this are still unclear as this article explains, and most COVID-19 cases are still concentrated in a few areas (Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and the northern island of Hokkaido, with Tokyo being the epicenter for new cases in the past week).

My prefecture of Toyama still doesn’t have any confirmed cases, and out here the stores are all still in business and the schools have reopened.  As such, it’s been kind of surreal to read the news from back home and worldwide, and to read how people are reacting to the pandemic and the requests to stay home.  Stay smart, and stay safe, everybody. Continue reading »

Three-Quarters of the Way There: An Interview with Andrew Marshall

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Andrew Marshall works as a photographer, painter, videographer, writer, and podcaster, the combination of which make up his entire income.  Much of his work focuses on outdoor exploration: his writing’s been featured in Upventur and Backpacking Light (for whom he also produces a podcast), and he’s photographed landscapes from Scotland  to Yosemite Valley.  I called him via Skype to talk about self-employment, balancing promotion with creativity, and what it’s like to leave your Day Job.

 

I. I’ve Sought Out More Hands-On Work

 

But I Also Have a Day Job: So, going back a ways, why did you choose art school?

Andrew Marshall: I wanted to make movies.  I was a film major at SCAD [Savannah College of Art and Design] and I had wanted to be a filmmaker since I saw Jurassic Park when that came out in 1994.  It took a while, but I think what I eventually realized is that I wanted a job that was exciting, and I wanted a job that would take me around the world and that felt like an adventure, and filmmaking was a way to do that. Continue reading »

Don’t Try to Hide Your Economic Privilege

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this article in The Guardian I read a few days ago, where novelist Lynn Steger Strong talks about the financial difficulties of making it as a writer.  We all know that paying your bills through any kind of creative work is a daunting challenge, but Strong’s article shines some light on whether we talk about our financial situations honestly, or with a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Quick note—this post will probably make a lot more sense if you read Strong’s article first.  If you’re in a hurry or otherwise don’t want to, though, no sweat—you should still be able to get something out of this post! Continue reading »

Once in a While I Get Really Depressed, and That’s OK

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I went through a pretty rough patch a few weeks ago—like, stay in bed until four o’clock on a Sunday rough, stomach’s so upset you can’t finish your lunch rough, harboring doubts about your entire life’s direction rough.  The worst of this miserable cesspool overcame me for two and a half days (about 54 hours by my count), but its effects lingered for the next two weeks as smaller problems that wouldn’t normally bother me started hitting me hard—and that was all kinds of not fun.

I’d rather not share the specifics of what set off this depressive episode, though in retrospect I’ve realized that it was caused by a lot of different factors, including Day Job problems, personal issues, Coronavirus risks, the fact that it’s fucking cold and murky during the Toyama winter, and Continue reading »

Coronavirus Update: What’s Going On in Japan?

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Over the past few days I’ve gotten a barrage of texts and calls from friends and family back in the States who’ve heard the Coronavirus news from Japan and wanted to reach out.  I’m grateful that so many of you have expressed concern, and thought a blog post might be a better (i.e., time-saving) way to keep you updated on what’s going on with COVID-19 in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Last Thursday night, Japan time, Prime Minister Abe announced his request that all Japanese elementary, junior high, and high schools close for the next month to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.  The move came at a time when about 200 cases of the virus have been found throughout Japan (excluding the passengers of the cruise ship docked in Yokohama).  Around 50 of these cases have been in the northern island of Hokkaido, Continue reading »