I am now done with testing/revising/implementing all the components of my ceramics web presence. Best thing, I am going to meet my deadline for a live online store! May 1st. I am so thrilled. I had to get OK with all the steps it takes to prep and insert items in the shop, not counting making the pieces. I wasn’t that thrilled with all the necessary processes and was pretty much dragging my feet.It’s a lot of tedious work. I should have developed a better prep system, early on, and applied it with gusto, a year ago. I should have approached the website and the building of the store as a paid job of x hours a week, and I did not do that. Instead, I gave myself permission to just go with the flow, and then neglected to ever change the flow (when I should have and could have). So, crunch time is finally upon me, now. The good news is that my updated prep system is paying off nicely, much faster and easier to take than the original set-up.I just read Every Love Story is a Ghost Story (D.T. Max’s biography of writer David F. Wallace.) It’s about creative process, impairments to mental wellness, literary dynamics and paradigms, plus observations of the culture and society that Wallace graced us with.The biography had an odd, but palpable, vibe that somehow traversed the minutiae of the text, acting like static electricity and landing on me. It jump-started an introspection of my current relationship with clay. The leap is too convoluted to explain--has to do with empathy.I can’t wait to get back to making things, getting deeper into texture, color, heft & feel. I like pieces with some weight to them, textured surfaces, and (if not unglazed or just clear over porcelain), a good meld of colors.

Five Practices that Pay Off