Rachael and Lauren continue their two-part discussion on monetization by touching on infusing pleasure and enjoyment into their work. They share their own experiments with creative ventures and the valuable lessons learned on their paths toward a fulfilling creative lifestyle.
Rachael and Lauren continue their two-part discussion on monetization by touching on infusing pleasure and enjoyment into their work. They share their own experiments with creative ventures and the valuable lessons learned on their paths toward a fulfilling creative lifestyle.
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The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Lauren: Hello, hello. This is part two of our conversation from last episode on monetizing some of our creative work and keeping some of it just for fun. Enjoy.
Lauren: Carrying on with the ceramics thing, you could make the most perfect bowl, and it could still explode in the kiln.
Rachael: Oh yeah. I love ceramics because you cannot create an expectation for yourself.
Lauren: Yeah. It's just you wanted to try, and you try. Things can happen, and I think it's a similar approach with monetizing your creative skills where it's like if you want to try, give it a try. There's going to be so many factors outside of your control, but it's worth finding out the answer to that question if you have that question.
Rachael: Totally. And I think in terms of expectation, we talked about this a little bit too: if you are setting an expectation for yourself, you are creating a boundary that could be helpful, but I think we have to be so conscious of is this sucking the joy out of my process? Because what we talked about last time, play following the fun, that is the process. What I get the most out of making things and being a creative person is that when I'm making something or doing a project, I am in this flow state of creativity, and I'm processing my feelings about other things that are happening and getting to let the art come out of me, I guess.
Lauren: Releasing the art?
Rachael: Releasing the art. And that sounds so like, "I'm a studio fine artist."
Lauren: No, this is really great.
Rachael: But I think that I'm personally working on trying not to lose sight of the process, and by setting an expectation, we could potentially lose sight of the joy. If you have a vision in ceramics of what your mug or vessel is going to look like, and then the clay body didn't fire how you thought it was going to, or the glaze didn't interact in the way that it normally does, or your piece exploded because you built it poorly, or someone else's piece exploded in the kiln... It doesn't even have to be anything that you did. There are so many variables, and it's why I love it so much because we cannot get attached until it's finished. And even if it's finished, you could drop it and break it.
I guess that's another thing. Some things are meant to be... Eventually it'll break. Use your ceramic pieces that you make because it's okay if it breaks because you enjoyed building it. You should enjoy using it too. Same thing with quilts. Same thing with clothes that you make, food that... You would never create something and then never eat it, I would hope. If it was bad. But your stuff never is. Today's mocktail is a blueberry syrup made by Lauren.
Lauren: Yeah, it's a non-alcoholic beverage. I learned how to make shrubs recently.
Rachael: I don't even know what that is.
Lauren: It's a mix of sugar and vinegar, usually, with some kind of fruit flavoring, herbs or spices. This one is blueberries, frozen because I can't be trusted to not let blueberries go bad, as we talked about with berries earlier, balsamic vinegar, sugar, and a bunch of mint and a little bit of basil.
Rachael: Delicious. Obviously sucking it down while we're gabbing.
Lauren: But you're right about the cooking thing. There's so many steps of making where it's like, "I made this thing," you feel good about the process, but enjoying it, enjoying the fruits of your labor, the literal fruits of your labor...
I like making art that was meant to be used, and I've always found it so infuriating conceptually that you would think that art that's supposed to be used that also has utility, like a mug or a vase or clothes that we wear, would mean it's more valuable 'cause you can use it, 'cause it's adding more. But as we talked about with art objects, if you make a abstract form in ceramics that can just sit on a shelf that's really beautiful and is an art piece, in this market for whatever reason, you can sell that for $1,000, $10,000, but I do not know anyone who's capable of selling a mug for $1,000.
Rachael: No.
Lauren: Or a vase. Let's say the vase and the art object are the exact same size, use the exact same amount of materials, glaze, clay. Those have different values once they hit the market. Maybe the crux of what we're talking about here is monetizing your stuff can change it. And it can suck too, when you realize there's a cap on what the market will bear for what you're making.
I went through this with deciding to go to culinary school, understanding that what people will pay for food, there's a very realistic limit to that. And even the upper, upper limit of a three Michelin star dining experience, I know myself well enough at this stage in my life: I'm not willing to put in the work to get there. Maybe if I was younger and super hungry for that, but I just...
I was talking with Kristle about this over lunch. Because I'm not relying on cooking to support myself, maybe I'll do a pop-up here and there, I'm okay with making money from cooking, but I don't want to rely on it for 100% of my income 'cause I know what the pay range is to work full-time in a kitchen. And I'm sure even catering, personal chefing, content creation is its own kind of slog, and maybe I'll dabble, but because I'm not relying on cooking for my income, I don't want to suck the pleasure out of it.
I want cooking... Because it has no pressure on it right now, it has to be pleasurable for me. I think that's what we've been talking about is know what things you want to keep precious and pure and just for you and know what things you might want to introduce to other people through selling it.
Rachael: Yeah. Absolutely. When you said the word pleasure, it reminded me that I saved a meme. I guess it's a meme, a piece of content that someone shared. And I keep thinking about the folks that are talking to me in discourse online when I'm talking about prioritizing play, how it feels like folks, myself included, we think, okay, I have to do my responsibilities first and then I can pursue pleasure.
Lauren: As a reward.
Rachael: As a reward, yep. And instead, what if we infuse pleasure into everything that we do? Granted, of course, not everything is going to be a fun, joyous experience-
Lauren: But if it can be...
Rachael: If it can be, yeah.
Lauren: ... why not?
Rachael: So if it's pleasurable to cook as you see fit right now, sometimes monetizing with a pop-up, sometimes doing this, dabbling in things like that, if it's still providing the pleasure and giving you the fulfillment, amazing. But it doesn't mean that you have to wait to find the pleasure in the thing until you've made a bunch of money.
Lauren: Yes. That's very, very true, and it's bringing up... I think doing my dinner pop-ups is a good example of dipping your toes into monetizing. Again, I've been a home cook for 20 years, I really like cooking. I really thrive in having people over for dinner environment where I can leisurely cook, have some snacks on the table. It's very chill, but we still get to eat together. I sound like a creep every time I say this. I love watching people eat food that I've made.
Rachael: Hey, I love to eat the food that you've made, so-
Lauren: Perfect. As long as you're okay with me watching you.
Rachael: Yeah, I guess I've never noticed, and now I'm going to.
Lauren: Because I'm so covert about it.
Rachael: The glasses come down.
Lauren: But anyways, when my classmate, Tammy, and I decided to start hosting dinner parties towards the end of culinary school, it was such a fun experience because it's like, okay, got to name the dinner, find a theme for it, tickets to it, market it, create a menu. And then the actual cooking part of it was really interesting because all that promotion stuff and creative, coming up with an idea for the dinner, I got that on lock easy. But then when it came to actually like, "Okay, we sold 24 tickets. How many groceries do we need? Where are we getting the groceries from? What are our profit margins?" we kind of just guessed what to charge based on we're in New York, and we're doing this many courses. And we didn't really do a back end number crunch. And that's totally fine. That's part of the fun of figuring it out.
Rachael: And you learned so much from that experience.
Lauren: Absolutely. The takeaway from doing the dinner parties and having to like, "Okay, dinner starts at 7:30, we have to have plates out at a certain time," that pressure was exhilarating, but also so draining. We definitely had a buzz after the dinner was over, but at the end of the day, I've told my friends, "I don't think I've worked that hard for $900 of profit, planning and grocery shopping over the course of weeks." I haven't worked that hard for that amount of money since the very early days of freelancing, that I just can't see myself putting in that amount of work at this stage in my life to make the dinner party economics work for myself in a way that's going to be a good chunk of my income.
It's still fun, but what can keep it fun a lot of times is not having to rely on it for all of your income. So for me, I wouldn't have had that experience or that data now, had I not tried that out. We did two of them. And it's good to do it a couple times too, to get a wider range of data.
Rachael: Does this get easier?
Lauren: Yeah. Does it get easier? Does it get more pleasurable? Did I take my learnings from the first time, apply it to the second time? Did it get better? What changed? And granted, two dinner parties is not that many, but I already had a hypothesis going in that this is going to be a lot of work.
Rachael: She's a scientist.
Lauren: And what you were saying, recognizing the parts that are pleasurable to you. I love feeding people. I just don't have to do that through dinner parties necessarily. I can have smaller dinner parties, maybe. I can tweak-
Rachael: Invite your friends over.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Less pressure.
Lauren: I can tweak parts of the formula, but it's all valuable feedback to have.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. Thinking about you saying, "I have not worked that hard for $900 in a long time," I got to the point with my in-person craft fair things where a greeting card, the industry standard: max $6. No one's paying more than that for a greeting card. You can't. You can try. So I had to sell a lot of stuff, a lot of $3 stickers, a lot of $6 cards, to make my booth fee back. And I think the most successful event that I had was a three-day weekend event, and the hours went to 11 P.M. which is past my bedtime. And I sold some ceramics, so I had a couple of higher price point items, and I maybe left with $3,000. And the booth fee, I think, was probably 750 up to 900 or something like that. And at that point I was like, I think I would've paid the amount that I made in profit to have a free weekend.
Lauren: Ooh, that's such valuable feedback.
Rachael: I would've rather laid on the couch and read a fantasy romance novel the entire weekend, and I would've paid $1,000 to do that.
Lauren: You realized through doing it... You recognized what your weekend is worth to you monetarily. At least a ballpark.
Rachael: Totally. And I know that other creative folks that I'm friends with who also had booths there did really well, but they didn't work a day job. And so they had time to recoup. I had to go immediately back to work. I had to take a day off to do it. It's all about finding the balance that works for your particular life. And if I was relying on that for all of my income? Amazing. I probably would've made more product to sell and then scheduled some time to recoup after and read my romance novel. But I think all of it is valuable information.
It was cool to have that money. That was the most I ever made from an event. And at the same time, I was like, "That was really exhausting." And I think I'm trying to now approach my life with how can I live a slow creative life? That means having spurts of creativity without the pressure of selling and going to events and things like that.
Maybe someday I'll have a body of work that I sell. I would love to do an art show that talks about how we're all multifaceted and how being a chaotic creative with lots of interests and expressions is valid and doesn't make you less of an artist or a creative.
Lauren: I love that. I feel like if we did a chaotic creative art show, it would be in a different location every day.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. Which goes against my slow practice, if I had to move an art show. But that would be fun.
Lauren: Yeah, I actually think that's a very silly idea.
Rachael: I love that.
Lauren: Yeah, I was thinking about when you were talking about your experience at the craft fair and selling. I had a similar experience within... This is maybe five, six years into lettering. This is right before I went to go travel. A lot of designers, letterers, illustrators, anyone who works in the 2D visual arts sell prints of their work. That is a natural thing that you see a lot of other creatives doing. They have a little shop of their work that people can buy.
And I had never sold posters before that, really. And I thought it would be fun to sell some posters in order to fundraise for my trip. And I was like, that makes sense. This is something people are familiar with. I see other designers selling merch. Especially posters. Posters are probably the easiest thing.
I created this set of nine travel-themed pieces of lettering. I put them up online. I used Society6 to fulfill it, and I put a little landing page up being like, "I'm fundraising for my travels." And I thought, because I had, I don't know, 20,000 followers at the time, this is early-ish Instagram, mid-Instagram, where I was like, oh... I had had enough wins with launching products or projects, getting client work, that I was like, "These are going to sell." I went into it the same way I went into ceramics, kind of cocky like, "I got this." And they didn't sell that well.
Granted, I had only invested the time in making the lettering. I didn't print a thousand of each poster and store them in my apartment. People call this the minimum viable product. You want to put in the least amount of effort to test out a theory, basically. And so I threw it up there. I thought I was going to make $10,000 of poster sales, which is wild in hindsight.
Rachael: But honestly, if you look at your numbers... I think about this all the time. If you have 20,000 followers and your poster was 20 bucks, it wouldn't take that many of those people. But actually it doesn't work that way.
Lauren: The actual conversions. I think I sold a couple thousand dollars’ worth of posters, which still felt good. And this is over the course of six months leading up to this trip. But I was like, "Oh, that expectations versus reality." But it was helpful feedback. This is where the aha moment came in. On that landing page where I was promoting the posters, in Squarespace at the time, there was just a little widget that was like, you could add a donate button. And I just threw it up there. I think I wrote something like, "If you love me but hate posters and just want to contribute, here's a little PayPal link or something."
Rachael: Love that.
Lauren: And at the end of the six months of promoting these posters, I had made more in donations than poster sales, of people who were just like... I was 26 at the time. People who were excited to fund my trip and follow along.
Rachael: That is fascinating.
Lauren: It is fucked up.
Rachael: Also, just bold because I feel like us now would never ask people to just give us money for nothing.
Lauren: Absolutely not. But the audacity of younger me, I think there are some lessons to glean from that. The naiveté, just the audacity. That feedback that I got from doing that project was like, okay, if people are more willing to give me money than buy a poster, posters aren't it for me. And that was helpful feedback because the next year I ended up trying a new thing again and launching my first course.
And from that very first course launch, and granted, I probably put in more effort into making the course and promoting it than that series of posters, but I made $65,000 from launching this course. And I was like, oh, it doesn't matter how much I love lettering and I'm passionate about posters... I'm not passionate about posters.
Rachael: There's not one poster in your space.
Lauren: Yeah. I like murals, I love painting murals, but I could care less about producing posters. And also because lettering is so specific, it's a phrase that someone has to put on their wall, maybe they don't want the phrase, maybe they don't like the colors. There's too many variables where I was like, from a business standpoint, posters aren't my thing, but what else could be my thing? I like lettering. I like painting. What are the other viable applications?
I started doing murals even before this poster project, but that felt good, and it seemed like there was more of a market for that, so you just got to test things out. Same with the courses. You're like, "Oh my God, that's the most money I've ever seen in my life." You're like, "I'm going to do more of this." That's totally natural, but that's the hat you have to put on or the lens you need to look at things through when you do monetize, but if you don't, then it's no big deal.
Rachael: Don't take it personally. It's not because they didn't like your work, it's that it didn't apply to them in that particular time.
Lauren: Totally. And to your point about making sure you're enjoying the process and always checking in with yourself of like, is this still fun? Do I still like ceramics or lettering or stationery, as long as it's still enjoyable, you just might, from a business standpoint, have to find other channels for that, the same way I did with posters not being my thing.
Rachael: I think part of business that maybe people don't... Maybe people do talk about. It's not like I'm really in the business space, eating up everything that business bros have to offer. But being able to try again and again until something hits. You have the passion and the skills, and maybe it's not the right time, maybe it's not the right avenue for those skills. Not letting a "failure" like that discourage you from your creative practice, especially if you're trying to monetize. Just try stuff.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. To that point too, there's no shame in wanting to try to monetize something either. I think a lot of us, myself included, have gotten at a standstill with ourselves where you overthink, if I monetize this, what does that mean about me, about my art? We live in this capitalist hellscape. Am I profiting off of my joy? There's this rabbit hole of thoughts you can go down. It's also not bad to monetize your work if you want to try that. Everyone has to eat, everyone has to work. And for me, the opening question, like you asked, where do I stand on this, for me, it works to monetize my creative passions because I have to work anyways.
I would much rather do it with a skill that I like to use. The one and only time I've worked a full-time job, I am such a good employee, it's sickening. And I don't like that. I don't like that I'm a simp for work. I'm a fast worker, and I quickly learned that I like doing a good job, I like getting the pat on the head.
Rachael: Yeah, you're a golden retriever.
Lauren: Yeah, and there was just a point where I was like, wait, me doing a good job and me working so fast just gets me more work with no extra pay. And that didn't click for me. That's an example of maybe what we're talking about of monetizing a skill that you've honed and learned. For me, I went to school for advertising. Tried working in an advertising agency and realized that even if I was doing an okay job at it, and it was interesting and new, I didn't like the dynamic, I didn't like the way it ended up feeling. This is even before I had any critical analysis of what I was doing. I'm marketing for these giant companies. I just wanted a creative job. If I'm being honest, at 22, that's all that was on my mind. And that naivete, sometimes I miss her. I'm glad I know what I know now, but it's always worth trying.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. I think that being new at a creative thing is such a lovely place to be because you don't have... Well, hopefully you don't have expectations from yourself, and you can approach it with the enthusiasm that you may never get back again.
Lauren: Absolutely.
Rachael: Especially if you monetize it. So enjoy it. Enjoy being a beginner, I think.
Lauren: Right before we started recording, when I was in the bathroom, I know we were chatting through the door, and I think we were talking about how even when you don't monetize a creative hobby, you can still become disillusioned with it or frustrated by it or start to... For example, I think a lot of us started this way where, before we were even monetizing our creative thing, for me it was lettering, for you it was lettering and stationery, you start following a bunch of people who are or who are at least trying and who maybe are just posting their work in that medium. And you become part of the community, and it's really fun. But it's inevitable that even if you're not monetizing, expectations start to creep in.
Rachael: Totally. Yep, you're comparing yourself.
Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.
Rachael: And there is enough to go around.
Lauren: There's enough to go around,
Rachael: Even with the high volume of people becoming hand lettering artists around the time, what, 2010-ish, there was enough work, and there still is enough work. I think that that sort of scarcity mindset is detrimental to creative people thinking like, oh, well, someone's making it better, so I can't make it. Absolutely, you can make it. It's about the process. It is for you ultimately. And then if you decide that you have enough bandwidth, capacity, interest to monetize, sure. Try it, and then-
Lauren: And the market's there.
Rachael: ... you can go back. You can go back to being a hobbyist, which is what I've done.
Lauren: Absolutely.
Rachael: And I feel so much happier.
Lauren: Yeah, it relieves the pressure.
Rachael: Yeah, I'm-
Lauren: Or it takes some of it off.
Rachael: How I want to live my life is having the slow available time to work on things as I become interested in them. And that is not possible if I were hustling to monetize all of my creative hobbies.
Lauren: Because your priorities change when you monetize too. You only figure out the kind of work you want to make, in a certain avenue or medium, by doing it a lot. And you find your style or your niche, as people say. There is a practical reality that some of the stuff you want to make, there isn't a market for. For example, people love to rip on this, but it's true: painters and designers who paint flowers, there's a market for flowers. People love flowers.
There are just certain things that might be written off as basic or common, but there's this alignment where if you just happen to naturally love painting flowers, you can probably be an illustrator easier than someone who loves to... Here's a good example. If the only thing you like to paint and draw are Star Wars characters, you actually can't do that. It's illegal for you to do that. You cannot monetize that because it's someone else's IP.
This is a whole other episode about copyright but like-
Rachael: Totally.
Lauren: Yeah, when you see Disney stuff floating around Etsy, but the, I think, struggle of figuring out, do I want to monetize this is how easy is it to monetize? The example I gave with the Star Wars characters, that's an easy no. Let's say you practiced painting enough where you're a good technical painter, but if the only thing you really want to paint are Star Wars or Disney characters, that's just not a business. Unless you want to go work for one of those companies. Maybe that's an avenue.
Figuring out what makes sense to monetize too, like with ceramics, like we've talked about, you even dabbled with this, selling some ceramics. I don't even want to dip my toes in at this point because I just know I want to be able to take my damn time, and I want to be able to tinker and figure out how things work and experiment without thinking about how much I could potentially sell this for 'cause I'm not even fast yet. That ceramic baguette I made took eight weeks to make, the whole class. And I'm so proud of it, but I would never try to make it again.
Rachael: Totally. Yeah, one thing, and I went to the studio yesterday, and I'm navigating right now, prioritizing play when I don't want to.
Lauren: Do you have any lessons or tips you can share? How has that been for you? I have a hard time. I'm very spoiled where if I don't want to, it's so hard for me to drag myself to do it. But what you're doing or what you're trying to do is what a lot of professional, creative people who have been in it for a long time say to do, which is just show up. And that's good, and I admire that, which is why I'm asking.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've been just consuming all of the creativity books, like...
Lauren: The Artist's Way?
Rachael: The Artist's Way, and the War of Art, and I'm reading Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act right now, and everyone says, "You have to show up. You have to continue to show up for yourself." And I do think I show up for myself, especially when I'm in a good mood and I have a lot of energy and I have a lot of ideas, and the sun is shining and feeling really great.
I struggle to show up when I am in a bad mood, in a depressive episode. It's harder. But I know that creative projects for me are healing. It is a way for me to connect with myself or connect with my community. And so yeah, yesterday I was in such a sour mood, and-
Lauren: Just a grumpy gal?
Rachael: I was a grumpy gal. And I couldn't get out of it. And I think there are a multitude of reasons, just a confluence of things happening that I'm just like, "Ew." I just want to be a brat. And all I want to do is just binge-watch TV, but that's all I did on Sunday, so it's like I cannot do this again for an entire evening because then it hits 8:00 PM, and I've been watching TV for hours. And that's just not something that I do. I don't feel good. I'm not knocking binge-watching TV.
Lauren: There's a time and a place.
Rachael: Exactly. And I did it the day before, so I'm like, not a two-days-in-a-row thing. So I was like, it's 4:00 PM, I'm done with work. Just go to the studio, go to the ceramic studio. Doesn't matter if you don't make anything and you just stand there and look at your stuff. And all of the stuff that I had previously worked on had dried out. I had to scrap it, totally fine. And I just grabbed some chunks of clay, and I was like, let's see what I do on the wheel.
I made a bunch of bowls. Who knows if they'll turn out. But I was really proud of myself because number one, just being there, being off my phone away from a screen, using my hands and zoning out and getting into that creative flow, I was able to process some of the feelings, like why am I feeling sort of like this?
I also was able to connect with other folks in the community. The other members, chatting with them boosted me. Being around people is great. As much as I was complaining earlier about not wanting to be around crowds of people, different than people who are sharing your same creative values.
I also was able to see other work that people were doing and feel inspired, and it was such a lovely, magical experience. And I'm like, this is why they say to do this. This is why they say to show up. Because when you show up for yourself, that's what you're doing. You're connecting with yourself, and you're able... At least for me, I'm able to process what I'm feeling. That's what I'm working on right now is just trying to do the thing where you show up every day.
And in the War of Art, he talks about how most of us who work for other people, we show up at our jobs, whether we're in a bad mood or whether we're in a good mood. Whether we're going through something at home or not, we show up. We might have a rough day, we might have a lot to complain about with our boss, but we show up. And that's for someone else to make money, and that's for someone else to benefit from our time that we are selling, which is capitalism. So why are we not doing that for ourselves? Why are we not showing up, even when we're in a grumpy mood? The first thing to go is any sort of creative hobby, cause it's a joy for me. So by not being in a joyful mood, I'm like, well, that's not what I should be doing right now, but actually it's when I need it the most, I think.
Lauren: Yeah. You know it's the medicine that you need. But yeah, the barrier to get there. I find that having to go to a physical other place is helpful 'cause once you're there... It's like what people talk about with the gym: when you're there, you're there.
Rachael: I was thinking of the gym analogy when I was talking about this yesterday. I was just like, "No one ever feels..." generally, unless you overdo it and you hurt yourself. Generally when you go to the gym, you always feel great afterward, and you're like, "I should do this every day." And everyone's like, "Yes, you should. It's good for your health." And then I'm like, "Oh, maybe in a month." But then I felt that exact excitement, and I was energized by the studio. And I think you're right, going to another location.
I have been doing this for working on my own Rachael Renae work. I've been leaving my house to go work at a coffee shop 'cause I have to work somewhere else, or I'll get distracted by the laundry, the chores.
Lauren: 'Cause all your stuff is around you at home. We talked about how incredibly distracting it can be to just throw a load of laundry in because what you think, you're like, I'm committing to two minutes to just throw this load of laundry in, but what you're actually committing to is two and a half hours of checking the laundry, putting it in the dryer, hanging it up, whatever you're doing. It can throw your whole day's plan off.
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: But yeah, I've been inspired by you going to coffee shops to work, because I work from home, and it's too easy for me to just dick around in here. Actually, the other night, I was trying to write some emails, but I could not do it.
Rachael: Oh, you went to the coffee shop?
Lauren: I ended up going to a bar 'cause it was nighttime. It was like 8:00 PM, and I was like, I can't get this done. So we went to a bar... Sous Terre.
Rachael: Oh, great.
Lauren: Is that how you pronounce it?
Rachael: Yeah, yeah.
Lauren: You're the French gal.
Rachael: "Below ground."
Lauren: I did get that because sous chef means-
Rachael: Below.
Lauren: ... beneath.
Rachael: Did you know that chef means just boss in French?
Lauren: Get out of here.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Wow.
Rachael: Yeah. So if you're talking about your chef, you're talking about your boss.
Lauren: What?
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: That's wild.
Rachael: I know. Just learned that.
Lauren: That's that a real fun fact. But I went, and I was doing my writing at the bar. Once I was there, I was like... I only brought my notebook. What else am I going to do? And I didn't want to be on my phone in public, and so I just wrote. And guess what? The second I opened the notebook and started writing, it started flowing out. I had to give myself a container to channel what I knew I wanted to be doing. The environment I was in before just wasn't conducive.
Rachael: It's unbelievable how much that helps me to get out of my space. I put my noise-canceling headphones on when I go to the coffee shop in my new routine, which has only been for a month, and I put on ADHD music playlists.
Lauren: What is ADHD music?
Rachael: It's soothing but upbeat music with no words. So it's just background music that sort of feels-
Lauren: Like good elevator music?
Rachael: Yeah. Yeah. There's a million playlists on Spotify, and I just searched ADHD playlist. And it works. I find myself bopping my head and stuff, but I'm typing, getting it all done. I also feel that way, changing the subject a little bit, about, I love to go out to dinner by myself, but I don't like being on my phone, even though I could be reading. But...
Lauren: What do you do?
Rachael: I usually bring a physical book, but I like the idea of a notebook and just noodling.
Lauren: Yeah. Noodling while eating noodles possibly?
Rachael: Yeah, noodling while noodling.
Lauren: When I took myself out to go write at the bar, I ended up chatting with... I didn't bring headphones, 'cause I was like, I don't know about headphones at-
Rachael: At a bar that feels... Yeah.
Lauren: And it ended up, like what you were saying, the random things that can happen, the connections you make in the studio once you get there, you're like, oh, this is great. It's actually nice being around people. I was chatting with the bartender, and he told me that on Tuesdays, they have jazz night, and Kristle and I are going to go see jazz tonight because I decided to drag my butt out of the house a couple days ago.
Rachael: I would like to just note that the best ever in my life, French 75, I had at Sous Terre.
Lauren: Oh, perfect.
Rachael: Yeah. Really good.
Lauren: Wow.
Rachael: So, what's our synopsis from this episode?
Lauren: If you've made it this far. It's so hard to succinctly wrap it up.
Rachael: But that's the joy of a podcast. No one's trying to listen to a podcast to have a succinct ten-minute episode.
Lauren: I think there are some podcasts that are just like, "Here are the three steps you need to take to accomplish fill in the blank."
Rachael: Those are not for chaotic creatives, are they?
Lauren: Yeah. I was telling Kristle that I, at the end of filming my last skill share class, this is two years ago, on how to give yourself a brief for a passion project, at the end of it, they tacked on, they were like, "Can we film some TikToks to talk about some of the same subjects that we're talking about in the class?" And I had originally said yes, but at the end of the second day of shooting, the producer gets on the stream, and she's asking me questions that I'm supposed to answer for TikToks, and I had a meltdown. I almost cried because I didn't feel like it was right for me to condense the advice and tips I was giving into 15 or 20 seconds. And I almost cried. I was just like, "I can't shrink this down into a nugget that I feel good about telling someone because there's so much more to explain."
Rachael: Oh, and I think you and I live in the nuanced world. We do not think in black and white thinking. And I think that comes with the curiosity and the compassion of understanding that all of our experiences inform how we perceive everything, and sharing in 15 seconds, that might be good for five places you're not cleaning and you should be cleaning in your house.
Lauren: I love that you specified "in your house" because I was like, on your body?
Rachael: As we were talking, I was like, did I brush my teeth today? I feel like I had such a crabby morning, I don't think I brushed my teeth today, and I can't wait to do it when I get home.
Lauren: It's fine. Why do you think I chew so much gum?
Rachael: Oh, man. I have a dentist appointment the end of the week, and I'm in my panic floss.
Lauren: That's amazing that you're panic-flossing this far out. I usually panic floss the night before.
Rachael: Well, they know if it's just the night before I'm still bleeding. I'm trying to get over the bleeding gums hump.
Lauren: I realized this was a sign of maturity for me, maybe a year ago.
Rachael: Stopped lying?
Lauren: I stopped lying to my dentist when they're like, "Are you flossing?"
Rachael: "No."
Lauren: I felt myself ready to give my spiel about, "Yeah, it's so weird that my gums are bleeding. I don't know why." And then I was just like, "No. I want to, but I don't."
Rachael: "I haven't prioritized it." Yeah, anyway.
Lauren: Yeah, how are we-
Rachael: I feel like for a TikTok, yeah, there are some things that are very suited to really quick digestible nuggets, like you said. But the stuff that we're talking about and you and I just talking in our personal lives, there's no succinct way to do it because it's just a lot of feelings-based and a lot of, I tried this and I adjusted, and it's just the winding path of the chaotic creative, I think. And that is such a joy, and I don't want to have to condense what I talk about down. That's why I just started a YouTube channel.
Lauren: I think this end of this conversation is actually the summary of what we've been talking about of even though... I think talking with other people, everyone's like, "Oh, do I have to get on TikTok?" The TikTokification of discourse and content and ideas, that can feel scary to people who are more suited to this kind of conversational style. It's like, how do I fit myself into this new format that is like, this is what's popular right now, this is the way we're communicating? I'm sure it happens with each new iteration of media or communication. But it's a good reminder that leaning into what feels right for you, which is longer form, just because things are getting TikTokified doesn't mean there isn't room out there on the internet for video essays or two hour-long podcasts. The kind of conversations and the kind of work that you want to have and you want to make, there's audience for that, likely.
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: The way you enjoy consuming things, other people enjoy that too. Yeah, like you said, some things like comedy or cleaning tips or... Some things are better suited for different formats the same way that some creative pursuits are better suited for monetization than others, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't... You have to try in order to figure it out.
I've made a couple TikToks, but then I deleted the app off my phone. There might be a time and place where I try to figure out that style of content, but at this point, I'm not going to.
Rachael: And how I approach the short form is a little bit of reminder, like, "Hey, I'm here to boost you. That is what I want to do, is I want to encourage you. By showing you snippets of my life, I am embodying that I care about so much about being a creative who's chasing personal fulfillment, basically." And I'm sharing on reels, and I forget to make the TikToks, that the user interface is very not friendly to me on TikTok, though. I have a hard time with it. I feel like it just blasts you with information. And I don't have the sound on my phone ever, which may be another ADHD thing. So that feels overwhelming to me.
But for Instagram reels, I'm trying to make these little snippets to hopefully show people like, "There's so much nuance here. Let's talk about this further in the podcast, in the YouTube, in the newsletter." There are-
Lauren: Different spaces for different conversations.
Rachael: Yeah. I guess wrapping up, do what feels right for you, right? Try something. See if... That's such bad advice. "Just do what feels good." But I think this is us giving you permission to try something. Try a new hobby, try to monetize your thing, see what you learn from whatever experience you decide to try and take that as valuable experience and valuable information and pivot from there if you need to.
Lauren: Yeah. It's all an experiment. Like we talked about at the very beginning, the discourse online, because of how we're incentivized to talk and definitive statements, can seem like there's a binary of right or wrong when it comes to monetizing a passion. There's no right or wrong. It will change your relationship to the thing, but what relationships haven't changed in your life over the course of your-
Rachael: Totally.
Lauren: Yeah, over the course of your existence, everyone is always changing. Change is inevitable.
Rachael: Yeah. And good, embrace it.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. I think a final tidbit, as a potential challenge to the listeners/viewers, if you are interested in trying a new practice or re-engaging with something that you're already doing, come up with a boundary, a parameter, and challenge yourself. Maybe it's a week, maybe it's a day.
Lauren: Maybe it's a number of-
Rachael: Do you have any challenges that you're working on or thinking about challenging yourself with? I have a couple.
Lauren: Interesting. Culinary school was a container, so I just finished that where I was like, I need to physically be in a kitchen and do this for a year. And that was really great. I knew that's what I needed 'cause I don't have the-
Rachael: And you planned for that for years.
Lauren: Yeah. I don't have the willpower to self-study at home. There are programs, online culinary schools, but I just knew I wasn't going to do it. Ceramics just ended, and that's an eight-week container, but it's starting back up this week, which I like the container of like... Oh, this is such a good analogy of you and I started at the same studio, taking eight-week classes where it's same day, same time every week. And then you became a member, which was unlimited access, and you stopped going as much-
Rachael: Stopped going.
Lauren: ... 'cause it was just like anything all the time. And so a container can be helpful 'cause there's some accountability baked in, especially if you're going to a physical location. Those are the only two things I can really think of right now. I haven't set a new challenge for myself.
Rachael: One... Go ahead, sorry.
Lauren: No, I was going to say I have been chaos baking a lot. And that's been... It's such an easy distraction though. Instead of being like, "I'm going to try one new cookie recipe a week," I've just been baking whatever, whenever. And I find that it's not entirely helpful to me right now, which is why I have to leave the house more often, because I have all the ingredients here. It's too easy to tinker in the kitchen when I know I want to be working on other things. I just find comfort in the process of chaos baking.
Rachael: Absolutely. Yeah. I think we could do a whole other episode about distractions and kind of strategies on how to overcome those, but I won't get into that.
Lauren: What are yours?
Rachael: My current challenges for myself: on my spring PLAYlist, which if you're not familiar, is a to-do list of play-
Lauren: Not an ADHD playlist.
Rachael: Not a music playlist as previously referenced, but truly just a to-do list with only play items, because I think-
Lauren: Oh, that's fun.
Rachael: ... making a list of play activities is helpful when you are like, ah, I have some time right now. What do I do with that time? I could scroll for 20 minutes, or I have... Today, I was in a bad mood, theme of my stories today, and on my PLAYlist is "Find some cool feathers." So I went for a walk 'cause it's nice. I like to collect feathers that I find outside.
Lauren: You find feathers outside? I guess I live in the city part, and I'm like-
Rachael: You can find them.
Lauren: ... where are the feathers?
Rachael: You can find them. I think also creating the PLAYlist changes your mindset so that you start looking for play activities. And now that I said the feathers thing, maybe you'll start to see more of them. But that isn't even one of the challenges. I just did that today. So on the PLAYlist, that was me explaining what the PLAYlist is-
Lauren: Helpful.
Rachael: I really have always been drawn to self-portraits, drawing or painting. I'm really attracted to portrait paintings, and I want to learn how to do it, but I'm going to start with drawing. And so in May, I'm going to do a month-long draw a self-portrait every day.
The one that came into my mind today for a challenge is perhaps this is like a winter activity or even a next year activity, but make a quilt block every week and just force myself to make a block, and then by the end of whatever size I pick, I'll have enough to make a quilt.
Lauren: Oh, that's cool 'cause it all culminates in a thing. That's going to be very gratifying, yeah. It's your play quilt.
Rachael: Yeah, play quilt. Yeah, those are my challenges. I think setting things like that, whether it's a month-long thing or a year-long thing, or just this week, I want to wear pink every day, it doesn't have to be big. It just has to be intentional, I think.
Lauren: Yeah, intentional and then ideally achievable. Especially if you're feeling overwhelmed, I find that it's best to start with a smaller challenge or project so you can get a win in there.
Rachael: Yes. Absolutely. So think about your challenges, and we'll be back to gab some more on the next episode. Remind folks where to find you.
Lauren: You can find me at Hom Sweet Hom, which is "Home Sweet Home" without the E's in home. Really didn't do myself any favors there.
Rachael: I love it. I love it so much.
Lauren: That's me.
Rachael: Yeah. And I'm Rachael Renae, R-A-C-H-A-E-L R-E-N-A-E.
Lauren: The way you think to spell it initially, it's not that.
Rachael: Yeah. In either word. Yeah, we're hard to find on the internet, but we're there.
Lauren: That's why we're good.
Rachael: Yeah. Thank you for listening to our rambling but passionate conversation.
Lauren: Yeah. Good luck with whatever you are doing in the background right now.
Rachael: Yeah. Cleaning five parts of your body, perhaps.