Fear of a blank page is called Vacansopapurosophobia, if you’re curious. Helps me break the seal of writing. Also, while we’re on the idea of fear, and for the day that’s in it, please enjoy David Bowie’s answers to the Proust Questionnaire. A legend gone too soon.

On to the topic!

A lot of what I want to work on this year is what I have wanted to work on the last few years. What I want to change is how I work on it.

I realised this after the end of last year, when I pushed too hard.  If you’re wondering what pushing too hard looks like, picture the following.

A room painted dark red, with cool lamps, a tinsel-and-Santa-hat-festooned-Buddha and miniature Christmas tree in one corner. WWII grenade on the wall, religious iconography and a stained glass window. My unwashed, profusely sweating self in old  candy pyjamas, covered in as many blankets as possible on the couch, stumbling up to get tea, tissues and cold medicine whenever I wake up. BBC news on in the background.

This is in Coventry, in Martin Bowes’ house. I’m there to record violin for Attrition‘s new record which will be on vinyl this year. Martin is a lovely person, was an amazing host, but also gets the job done, recording in The Cage Studio. I re-recorded Pripyat, even. It should be a really awesome thing. I’m just too burnt out to have the correct emotional response.

Before this (few days before Christmas), I had done the following:

• Flown from Toronto to Ireland
• A week or so before, I had spent a week working in Montana
• Couple weeks beforehand, was in Ireland to work
• Few days before that, I launched a single and event in Toronto
• Couple weeks before that, I was in Nashville.
• September and August I spent shooting two music videos, one of which is currently live.

That’s not counting corporate shows, shoots, and so on.  This is just the sheer volume of travel in a short space of time.

Over the course of a few months, I did not fully unpack a case, buy groceries, or cook properly for myself. My apartment, aside from  when my mother visited to come to my  launch (good lord can I take a moment to point out how AMAZING that is? Seriously) was a dystopian nightmare where things were in places that made no sense. I think the conditioner was next to the tins of beans at one point.

Point being, while I got a good bit done, and I’m glad for that, my body had its revenge. I can’t remember the last time I was that sick.

I’m still not at full health. I don’t expect to be for some time, but I had to make a few decisions that I hope I will carry through into the following year.

1. Say no when I have to, without guilt. For January I’m trying to make sure there’s no shows and no reason for me to pack a suitcase.
2. Gamifying daily tasks so I put off less – I’m currently using Habitica, which is so far paying dividends, and it’s free
3. Take on challenges that clearly benefit me.  I’m taking on another 100 days this spring.
4. Make my health a priority. If I’m not at strength, I do a worse job and reduce my overall output value.

So with all that in mind I want to take what I did last year and do it bigger, and cheaper, and smarter. I can’t do any of that if I don’t keep to the points above.

I’m hoping that I don’t have to pack a suitcase this month. Either to stay anywhere or to play a show, as my pedals, cables, interface, swag, notes and laptop require a small wheeled case.

I’m excited for this challenge. The first one I did last year was surprisingly hard but it stuck. For anybody new to this, I did 100 days of practice on Instagram, and kept to it even when I had to borrow a violin while I was travelling. (Adventures in frozen Saskatoon!) One thing I noticed is that I run my thumbs on Instagram captions. Not in itself a bad thing, but a blog allows me better formatting options and no blanking out my work if I accidentally over-hashtag.

So this year, doing the same thing but with the added bonus of writing. Given that the challenge this year is geared towards improving my technical skills and output, this will be good for me to lay down thoughts, see where the hurdles are and let me detangle ingrained processes.

So. No-suitcase January, because I’ve got a lot to unpack already.