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 »

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 »

2020 Update: How Often Do I Check My Email?

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Back in the early days of this blog I wrote about my problems checking email too often during the day.  At the time, too much email checking was leading to all kinds of distractions while I dealt with the little replies and messages coming at me from all directions.  To solve this problem I set a strict limit: I’d check my email two, maybe three times a day, at set times of the day, and absolutely no more.

This worked pretty well for a while until I got a new office Day Job that left me with all kinds of slow time during the day…so I started pulling out my phone and checking email during work lulls hoping for some stimulation.  As you might expect, this led me to be more scatterbrained, less productive, and ultimately more tired during the day—which you can read all about in my second e-mail checking update.

The downfalls of too much email checking are numerous, Continue reading »

Using Your Day Job as a Cover Story

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Think about the last time you were at a social gathering with people you didn’t know.  Think about the last time one of them approached you, or you approached them—and whether the person was older or younger than you, whether they were more established, whether they were an imposing authority figure like a boss, or whether they were a cute guy/girl you were interested in.

Now think about the things you talked about: where you were from, your hobbies, some observation about the gathering.  There’s a lot you might have talked about, but there’s one imposing question that comes up over and over in this situation, and it’s one that’s caused an insane amount of stress for me as well as for other creative people:

What do you do? Continue reading »

When You’re Busy, You Get More Done

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This week’s post is going to seem obvious, but it’s actually worth some thought.

Last week I had a few things to do, but not too much—my To-Do list was nice and short with no looming deadlines and plenty of time to work on long-term projects.  As a result, I took my evenings at a slower pace, didn’t work any late nights, and read a few hundred pages of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (a badass novel full of savage beatings and do-it-yourself abortions that makes The Grapes of Wrath look like a kids book).

It was a pretty chill week, and as it went on I found myself taking longer breaks, scrolling through more social media, and just plain staring into space when I could have been working—or at least doing something I enjoyed. Continue reading »

An Honest Post About Mental Health and the Academic Life

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Last week a woman I went to graduate school with killed herself.  After graduation she’d gotten a tenure-track job as an assistant professor at a large university, and it was there that she threw herself off one of the buildings on campus.  In a majorly bad move, the university where she worked neglected to cancel classes the next day, and students had to attend class in the building she’d jumped from.  Not cool, guys, not cool.

My former classmate and I hadn’t spoken in nearly four years, though there was a time when we were very close and confided in each other about a lot of things.  We talked about the difficulties that we were going through as grad students, our fears for the future, our frustrations with how the system was run, and the difficulties we faced teaching first-year composition to undergrads in Nebraska.  She was one of a small handful of people I could be open with about my insecurities, and she in turn was open with me.

Our falling out wasn’t a dramatic one, but it was a falling out nonetheless.  After I graduated and stayed in the city to work an editing/greenhouse assistant job in the university’s agronomy department, my skepticism Continue reading »

Can You Trust Your Coworkers With Your Creative Goals?

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Last week I wrote about how, during a night out with my Japanese coworkers while mildly under the influence, I revealed to one of my superiors that I wanted to be a novelist.  In addition to helping me reflect on my personal goals, the episode got me thinking about the question in the title: when is it OK to talk with your coworkers about your creative goals?

I’ve written at length about how and why I’ve kept my creative goals a secret at my different Day Jobs, but there have also been times when I’ve felt comfortable telling coworkers, and even bosses, that my real goal was to be a writer.  This was usually because I’d developed comfortable relationships with them, so revealing more of who I really was felt natural, and helped strengthen those relationships significantly.

There’s a few things to consider when debating whether to tell your coworkers about your creative goals, so here’s a quick list: Continue reading »

I Used to Have This Weird Afterschool Addiction to Computer Minesweeper and In Some Ways I’m Still Dealing With It

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I haven’t played Minesweeper (or any preinstalled Windows game) in at least five years, and probably longer than that.  Back in the days of Windows 3.1 though, Minesweeper was definitely the shit.

This would have been back in the mid- to late-‘90s when I was in middle school and my computer use was restricted to the family desktop we kept in the computer room (which is itself a laughable concept now) and that I had to fight my younger brothers for on a regular basis.  This was in the days of dial-up internet when doing anything online required real planning and thought, so most of my computer use back then consisted of games and word processing.

…except that we didn’t have that many games because our outdated, clunky PC had trouble running them.  So I found myself playing Continue reading »

Sometimes I Don’t Finish Everything, and That’s OK

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Yesterday was Sunday, and as usual I started the day by laying out everything I needed to do.  I’d fallen behind on my Japanese studying the week before, and in addition to being a big 日本語 catchup day, I also had some cleaning to take care of.  My plan of attack in order from start to finish looked like this:

  • Finish Japanese Kanji Lesson
  • Practice all Japanese vocab
  • Finish Japanese Speaking Lesson
  • Schedule Blog Post
  • Reply to Important Email
  • Respond to all Texts
  • Clean Shower and Sink
  • Glue Bedframe
  • Clean Out Closet
  • Go Grocery Shopping
  • Work on Story/Poetry Reading for Lit Mag

I decided to start with Japanese studying because it was the most mentally intensive task for the day, and because I wanted to Continue reading »

I Stay Away from Jerks and So Should You

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Two years ago I posted a piece called Is Your Workplace Socially Toxic? where I talked about how your coworkers play a BIG factor in what kind of experience you have at your Day Job.  If you work with people who are cool, laid-back, interested in the same things you are, and have a similar attitude toward work, then congratulations, because you’re in for some smooth sailing.

BUT, if your coworkers are boring, manipulative, gossipy, mean, passive-aggressive, the type to throw you a lot of last-minute deadlines, or some combination of the above, you’re in for a rough ride.

I’m lucky enough in that my coworkers at my Japan job are pretty cool to work with—though I imagine the language barrier helps protect me from most of the negative stuff ;-)  Continue reading »

Stuff I Do Before Bed to Help Me De-Stress

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Two weeks ago I talked about reducing stress and slowing down, a subject that’s been on my mind a lot lately as I work to, well, feel better about things.  And getting a decent night’s sleep is a big part of that.

Let me rephrase—when I say “getting a decent night’s sleep” I’m talking about more than just the actual body-rejuvenating sleep I try to get eight hours of per night.  I’m talking about an overall end of the night routine that’ll relax me overall, and that includes the part before I actually go to sleep.

So here’s a list of things I do before going to bed—I don’t manage to do all of them every night, but I think of them as general guidelines I like to follow.  (On a side note, I once had a friend who kept an elaborate 3+ hour going-to-bed routine from which she never, ever deviated, to the point where Continue reading »