Sneaky Boots

It’s 6am on a rainy Saturday. The kids are asleep. I’m tucked up warm against my pillow in the soft quiet of the morning. I’m writing, and no one has caught me yet! I’m such a sneaky boots! True, they’ll catch me at  some point, but for now, I’m getting away  with it.

As an aspiring picture book author illustrator with young children, I’d hear about authors getting up at five in the morning to work. People told me, “You must draw daily.” So I’d schedule myself a 5am work session. I’d drag myself (miserably) to my cold kitchen table to (miserably) force myself to work. 

But, oh, the frustration when my footsteps woke the kids. The self recrimination when exhaustion broke my schedule. I’d never get in my full hour. I’d never manage daily work. I’d groan, “Man, I bet those people never had children.”

Then a switch flipped, and I credit the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert for this idea: Why be a tortured artist, dragging work from an empty well for a taskmaster? Be a tricky artist! Welcome ideas into your den and coyote-catch those snippets of delight.

I asked myself, “How can I sneak this art that I desperately want in?” I stopped blocking in hour-long kitchen table sessions and then lamenting when my children caught me away from my work. Instead, I hid a notebook by my bedside, and one in my diaper bag and still another by the couch. And interruptions? Well, Sneaky things expect to be caught sometimes. But they’re going to do it again anyway.

Yes, I still made a goal to get some work in daily, but thrice a week would do. I put little tally marks on a post-it for every day that I got something done to see my progress. I happy-dance celebrated each set of 5 marks. Sneaky things accept that they may not get the opportunity to sneak. Sneaky things keep watching for opportunities, and when they spot them, they pounce. 

I still get interrupted. I’ll still go a week or weeks without getting my art in, but my attitude has changed, and so my art has thrived. As my kids got older, my sneaky moments got longer. I got my coloring book, 31 Delightful Dragons, self published, and so importantly, I stopped beating myself up for all the things ideal me could have done. Ideal me sure seems great, but real me is the only one who ever actually shows up. Real me is a better sneaky boots artist than a taskmaster artist. And as always, anything is better than nothing. Keep going.

Sneak just a second of art into your life.

You’re a Robin Hood stealing creative moments from a greedy, overscheduled world. It doesn’t matter how often, it doesn’t matter how long. It matters that you’re here, creating something wonderful, and, you sneaky boots, you. You’re getting away with it!

Go on, be a sneaky boots artist. See what you can get away with!