On Collecting Ideas.

Thinking about starting again.

The way my brain works is I can do things daily.

But when I stop, then not doing the thing becomes the new thing. I find doing something daily is the flow that works best for me. SO how do I come back to writing this newsletter after being away for awhile.

Well.

I have two ideas.

Write in Public

The first is to find a place where I can test ideas and see what resonates.

Substack notes seems to be built for that! A place where I can share what’s on my mind or some new ideas and see what resonates. If you wanted to try this you could do this on bluesky or X too. The idea is to find a place where people are and share your ideas.

I imagine it would work something like this.

Share 3 notes, pick the best one for the newsletter.

Send 25 newsletters, pick the best one for the Paid newsletter.

Collect Ideas

This is harder.

The hard part is not collecting ideas. The hard part is having those ideas on hand when you want them. I have ideas in sketchbooks, note books, journals, apps. But when I want an idea, I have no idea where to look.

Thats why I like notecards.

Every evening now, I allocate some time to go through those sketchbook, notebooks, even highlights from books, and make notes of them. My goal is to fill two boxes with notes. One box for meditations for living the creative life. And the second fro prompts.

So that’s where I’m at…

As I look to restart this newsletter… the first step is scheduling the time to collect notes. Step two will be to turn those notes into a micro essay, to post on notes. Then finally I’ll polish the best notes in the newsletter.

So if you’re looking for me, see you in the notes.

PS: Everything I know about creating a portfolio for illustrators can be found here. Thank you to everyone who was there when I shared this live and everyone who wrote with your gratitude, it really means a lot to me!