Now, more than ever.
At the grand age of 47, and despite buying this URL fifteen years ago, I have finally decided to make my website.
As I write this, I have recently returned to my place of work, following the UK COVID-19 lockdown period.
After the UK Government advised us all to work from home, we were getting prepared and eventually made it out of the office about a week before the lockdown kicked in.
It all seemed weird, scary, new, different.
Once the challenges of dealing with remote file sharing settled down, and the novelty of video chats wore off a little, the reality of working from home sunk in and for a while, it felt OK.
However, once the kids were no longer allowed to go to school and even though my wife handled all of the home schoolings, distractions were unavoidable and with them came delays, forcing us both to work during the evenings to catch up. Then followed the furloughing of a bunch of my colleagues which in turn took our creative team down from six to just two people.
Some of our clients had paused their marketing; however, there were still plenty that hadn’t. The agency wanted to push themselves more on social media to help generate new business, so the creative department was kept very busy during this period.
But I was beginning to feel more and more down in the dumps.
I’m an avid consumer of audio, both music and podcasts, yet I hadn’t listened to anything since leaving the office, and despite the fuel-saving, I was missing my two-hour commute and also being on my own for a bit. I’m also extremely good at keeping myself busy with personal, creative projects, but these too had taken a backseat.
The agency I work for had asked us all to suggest subjects for blog posts in the hope of building up shareable content, and I did manage to write a piece about the importance of personal projects and staying busy during quiet times. In all honesty, it was written primarily with my furloughed colleagues in mind, and I have to admit that while it was reassuring to be still working and nice to be kept busy, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of all the free time they had.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed the process of writing the blog post, despite how long it took. I’m not a natural writer, this website had been ready for weeks, but I didn’t want to make it live until I’d written the first blog post. It’s something I want to get better at, hence the reason (or one of them at least) for this website’s existence.
I’m aware that I could just put this out on social media, but I wanted to have a place that was just mine. A place that I had more control over without having to worry about likes; follows; comments; or measuring. I don’t want to put too much energy into analysing data; I want to create stuff. I don’t engage much with social media in general, but I am a sucker for Instagram, although I’m conscious that someone in a big chair could turn it off whenever they feel it’s not making them enough money. I needed my own space.
Thankfully I eventually came out of my COVID funk and got productive with personal stuff. Inspired by Grayson Perry’s excellent Art Club TV series, I began making art, as well as the occasional bit of illustration here and there. I also managed to publish a couple of issues of DIG mag, hammer through loads of podcasts and record one of my own. And of course, build this website, a place I can showcase my work on my terms, which I think is important, especially having just gone through a weird period that felt very much out of my control.
After six months, I waved goodbye to my home office/dining room table and rejoined a slimmer version of the agency on the day my children returned to school. Work is continuing the best it can. We are adjusting to the new rules and restrictions, while everyone is working hard to recover from all this.
Hopefully, I’ll still find time to do my projects, and write some more.
It still feels weird, scary, new and different.
