July Letter, On Unflappability and Walking

Year 2 of being a published illustrator, a new chapter.

Dear Reader,

I didn’t write a letter like this in June, you will understand

2 Years an illustrator at 43

In the space of 2 weeks, I received advanced copies of 3 books I illustrated that are published this year. Bringing the total of published books up to 7 in that 2 year period.

Book 8, has sold rights in multiple languages and will be out in 2025, and I’m currently spending my days working through book 9 and 10. I’ve even submitted the rough covers for book 11.

On top of that in recent months, all the books I worked on that got published in 2023 have been nominated and shortlisted for various awards.

My illustration career is off to a dream start, but it hasn’t always been easy. The last 6 months have been particularly hard. You see last year I had a packed schedule with projects lined up for the entire year with very little margin

But one of the projects stalled for 6 months due to rewrites.

This meant that for the 6 months I was scheduled to work on a project, I wasn’t able to work on it. And after that period when my next project was due to start, the original project was ready to go ahead again and with urgency.

This bottleneck created a pile up that affected my subsequent 3 projects, so for much of the year I was working through deadlines every week, sometimes multiple deadlines in a week.

Also this year a couple of potential projects fell through or got delayed. On one hand this is probably a good thing because for the first time this year, I feel like I’m working at a reasonable pace. But it also means that after I finish book 11 in September-ish, I don’t have anything to work on.

I expect something to come in by then, otherwise I’m working on writing some stuff to pitch, it’s all a new experience!

On Being Unflappable

I recently wrote to my agent to express gratitude for helping me work through all the different deadline situations, and she wrote back to thank me for being unflappable. I had to look it up.

While I didn’t know the word before looking it up.

I definitely intended it. Unflappability is an important skill in this business, because there will be many moments that feel like a crisis.

Money Crisis, Creative Crisis, Deadline Crisis, Human Crisis, Industry Crisis.

I don’t know how everyone deals with these, but my unflappability comes from really taking a day at a time, doing the most valuable thing I can do each day. Sometimes that means losing sleep to get something done, other times it means taking my wife for a breakfast date on a Tuesday.

And ignoring everything else.

I have never been in a real crisis, but I imagine in one of those, unflappability is actually essential to getting to any kind of good outcome.

If you are a young illustrator, try to be unflappable. It is appreciated more that your talent. And if you’re an older illustrator or approaching the business later in life, you might already possess some of the more valuable skills for the job, i.e being calm, when you’re tempted to be otherwise.

A Diary Entry from this week

Dear Diary,

I slept for 8 hours in a row, then got up at 5am and just felt out of place, like I was in a new place, and in a sense I think I am.

I wrote some morning pages then went to the gym where I walked at an incline for 30 minutes, before sitting in a gazibo to wait for the sun to come up so I could draw in my sketchbook. Upon getting home, Breakfast was ready for me and my kid was buzzing about. After breakfast and some family time, I stepped into the studio and very slowly got into work, small detail after small detail.

There's no sense of rush, just a steady walking pace.

None of this is normal.

Except all of this in what my normal is now.

This chapter of my life is called 'Walking pace'...

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How are you doing? What would you call the current or next chapter of your life?

Adam Ming