I never thought I’d be taking life advice from a backward-installed kitchen sink in an art exhibit with prosthetic legs hanging from the ceiling, but here we are, so I’m just going with it.

Last night I attended an event at the Meow Wolf Denver Convergence Station, and among all of the unsettling things, the beautiful things and the flat-out strangeness, this quote stuck with me. Seems simple enough. Seems so banal as to almost not require saying out loud. What you pay attention to grows.

Duh.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, or done much more than retool the chapter by chapter outline of my next project seventeen times and jot down a few false starts. Instead I’ve been traveling: Mexico, Washington DC and now, Denver, where I’m attending the Psychedelic Science 2025 conference. It’s a fantastic event filled with inspiring people and I am thrilled to be having this experience and focusing on my own mental health journey and a potential future assisting others. But it’s not writing.

I’ve been working with Mint in Box Press artist, Patricia McGee to edit and package her first abstract coloring book. But it’s not writing.

I’ve been prepping for San Diego Comic-Con, where Mint in Box Press will be exhibiting for author Greg Burke, who is in Australia and unable to attend the con this year. We’ve got some great things planned, like free stickers and signings with other Mint in Box Press authors and artists. But it’s not writing.

Like putting off having an uncomfortable conversation, the longer I wait to start, the harder it gets to find that motivation. I may be attending to my mind and my heart with these trips and big plans, but I have been neglecting my discipline, so it’s not growing. Like my last post stated, I am in a transition period, which entails a serious case of imposter syndrome, and being both eager to start something new and terrified to write those first few chapters.

Still, onward and upward, the artist must art. And hey, at least by doing this I’m putting words in an order that is more or less understandable. So that has to count for something.

I’ll leave you with this, which I am dubbing The Axolotl of Motivation. May it bring you good dreams and happy thoughts and much can-do-ness.