Hi monsterwhisperers!

Gosh, it’s been ages, hasn’t it? It’s really about time for a monster reunion.

I (Willie) have been working on a new book with pre-historic monsters, that is to say, dinosaurs. It’s about the end of the world and facing endings of all kinds. The main characters are all different dinosaurs who react to the news that they’re about to go extinct in different ways. It has some humour, bits of philosophy and bits of sadness.

I thought you monster fans might be interested in something that’s difficult and kind of funny, so here’s a special deal for you. You can get one of your own monsters immortalised in one of my illustrations for only $24 (US Dollars). And with that you also get the dinosaur book End of Days and a set of neato linoprint postcards (with dinosaurs).

If that sounds like a good deal (and it should) head on over to Indiegogo to find out more about the book and claim your monster. There are only 15 custom illustrations available total, and the special runs until 21 October.

Get your monster here.

Just claim the “A personalised drawing” perk and I’ll e-mail you so you can tell me all about your monster. Your monster can come in a box, cage or suitcase too, just let me know.

Catherine Caine, the great guru of awesome, wrote this post on respecting your weird-ass rhythm

This is a rhythm I am becoming better at incorporating into my work. I had to get good at it, because for me everything is either in flow – bam bam ba-dam wahoo I am brilliant at this – or not in flow – what.ever. I don’t know. This is hard. – and I don’t think that’s ever really going to change.

I wanted to post a comment, that is, one of my monsters wanted to post a comment, but her comments are powered by Discus and that doesn’t work where I work (yes, I read blog posts in work).

So I’ll let the monster say its piece here, and then I’ll try to talk to it. Ready? Here we are:

BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU WON’T JUST PLAY FINAL FANTASY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WHAT IF YOU’LL NEVER FEEL LIKE WORKING AGAIN YOU MUST DO SOME WORK RIGHT NOW!!!

OK. That sounds pretty scary, monster. Final Fantasy for the rest of my life, huh? I do hope it’s not FF8.

AAAAAAH!!!

Right, so let’s see if we can calm down about this a little. It’s true that I have been in a state of not-feeling-like-doing-work for the last two weeks or so. That does seem like a long time.

YES, AND YOU TOOK TWO WHOLE DAYS OFF AND IT WASN’T EVEN YOUR DESIGNATED TAKE-A-DAY-OFF TIME! THIS IS WHY YOU FAIL!

Uh-huh.

…!

So the theory is that if I take days off when I need days off, rather than at designated take-a-day-off times, my breaks and activity will be more in sync with what’s going on internally, and I’ll be more productive when I’m productive, and won’t waste any TEA* by taking time off when I’d like to be working.

*Note: TEA means Time, Energy and Attention, a concept my monster and I borrowed from Charlie Gilkey.

Yeah, well, that might work for Catherine Caine the amazing queen of awesome, but it won’t work for you. You’ll just sit on your bum all day and feel like crap, like you did over Christmas.

I didn’t sleep over Christmas. That probably had more to do with it. But, anyway, why would it work for Catherine but not for me?

BECAUSE SHE’S BETTER THAN YOU! HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE TO TELL YOU?

Oh, that’s you, is it?

OBVIOUSLY!!!

Should have been able to tell by the capslock.

YES! NOW GO DO SOME WORK!

I will, in a moment. I don’t think we’re done here.

Why not? I’ve told you everything you need to know.

Yes, but you haven’t heard everything I want to say.

… Well, what then?

It would be nice if you could trust that my TEA will come back. That, if I don’t have it right now, I can rest a bit, and get back to doing stuff later.

Yes, and it would be nice if it rained chocolate milk every Friday! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Why? Why can’t you try a little faith here?

I don’t do faith. I have no reason to believe this wishful nonsense. I require evidence.

OK, that’s not unreasonable. But how are we going to gather evidence without running experiments?

Well, you have had an experiment. You sat on your fat butt for two days. And what do you have to show for it? Ooh, look, pretty yarn. FEEL BETTER YET?!

Actually, kind of. I had some creative ideas about my February thing yesterday. I did my full hour of drawing this morning. And I’m writing something that could be a blog post right now.

What? Hey? When did this happen?

So, maybe resting works?

No, it’s just a coincidence. Or, wait, it’s because you went for a swim. And you didn’t do a full hour at all, you sipped tea for like twenty minutes!

Let’s not argue. Could I ask you to entertain the possibility that taking a break when I needed one was the right thing to do?

You can’t “take a break” two weeks out of every month. You can’t build a business that way. You won’t get any momentum. You’ll be like try, try, ugh, can’t be arsed. You will never tip because the [expletive deleted] boulder will roll right back down the [another expletive deleted] hill every time you “need a break”.

Huh. That’s pretty serious.

THIS IS WHY YOU NEED ME! TO YELL AT YOU! GO BACK TO WORK!

But, and I’m sorry for repeating myself, Catherine Caine says this is how it is for her, too. And you’re always on about how the sun shines out of her behind…

CATHERINE CAINE IS A HARLOT! You must not listen to her! Listen to Naomi! Listen to Havi, it took her a year to take half a day off, THAT’S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE LIKE!

But Havi counts that as one of the things she is working on. She’s not recommending this as a business building strategy.

But it’s how she got to be Havi, isn’t it?

I think there are many reasons Havi got to be Havi. There’s no reason to declare the inability to take time off as the sole reason for her success. You might as well blame it on the duck.

I don’t like it when you’re all reasonable like that.

Hm-hm.

What happened, man? You used to be all about the rules! Sleep at this hour, yoga at this hour, no twitter before lunch, you want to throw all that out and just do as you please? This is madness! MADNESS!

Listen, rules are good, but only as long as they serve me. I’m thinking maybe my monthly rhythm requires a different approach than my daily rhythm. Because it’s a different rhythm.

You saying this is a hormonal thing?

I’m saying it’s a different scale. My micro productivity hackery is good, but my macro is leaky like a wooden spoon with holes. We tried having one weekend off at the end of each month. That works OK, but it doesn’t work great. Let’s try something else.

Like what?

Like… Trying to assess at the start of the day whether it’s an on day or an off day. And if it’s an off day, to respect that.

I lack words to tell you how hard you’ll fail if you try this. Just saying.

You believe I won’t do any work ever unless I have a rule in place saying it’s a work day? Or you yelling at me to do work?

I am your last line of defence against a world of failure and self-loathing. Again, just saying.

I want you to know I respect everything you’ve done for me. You are my defence against failure and self loathing. Thank you.

I don’t like the tone in your voice here.

But we’re going to have to do things differently.

NO WE DO NOT! YOU JUST NEED TO GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR!

Uh-huh. And how come my butt was out of gear? Why did that happen?

Because…!!!

Because this system isn’t working. See? We need to change it up.

OK, but I’m setting a limit on the number of “off” days you’re allowed to have in a month. Otherwise you’ll just sit there and do nothing. Two days a month of doing nothing, no more!

Four.

Heck to the no! Two!

Monster…

Dammit!

Normal people get four days a month off. Eight if you also count Saturdays. And a bit.

I knew you were gonna say that! You’re not a normal person, you’re a freelancer! Freelancers don’t get weekends! That’s the whole point! That you work in the weekends to make up for the fact you’re a lazy bum working in your pyjamas and expecting your clients to pay for the time you spend watching kitten videos! FREELANCERS ARE BAD PEOPLE! THIS IS WHY THEY NEVER GET TIME OFF!

I can put proper clothes on if that makes you feel better.

Fine! Three days a month, and we’ll review come March. Oh, will we ever review. You better be ready for this reviewing, lady.

Deal.

Evidence. I will need evidence.

Sure thing.

And I need you to produce a list of things you can do on off days so you won’t be completely idle.

Wait, when did you become my boss?

ON MY DESK BY MONDAY!

Right. Sure thing. Yes boss.

That’s better.

And we should probably discuss this “freelancers are bad people” thing at some point, you know that, right?

Shut up. Who are you, Dr Phil? Just shut up.

Cool.

…

Are you doing any work yet?

Whew, thanks for reading the whole thing! So, yeah, that’s my work monster. He’s a very active little friend. I hope the little emoticons added to the conversation, I might use them again if I’ve got more monster talks to post. Sorry the blog’s been a bit quiet lately, we’re back now! Thanks for reading!

Sometimes, my monsters are monstering me, and I can’t help but monster back at them, and then more monsters join us and it’s like there are no thoughts in my head that aren’t monster thoughts, and there is no patience or compassion or goodwill or trust of any kind anywhere ever.

It’s a monsterloop.
It’s all kinds of horrible.

Here are some ideas that might help you when you’re stuck in a monsterloop.

Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Just because I believe it, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Whatever I feel, and whatever my monsters feel, is legitimate.
We have a right to our feelings and we don’t have to fight for them or defend them.
That means I don’t have to fight.
It’s just a monster loop.

All the best for you and your monsters, loopy or otherwise.

Big thank you to everyone who came to our monsterparty! Yay!

Much fun was had. We had some monster games, monster drawings, monstrous book-binding and live music from a ninja cowboy with a guitar. True story.

We also announced the winners for our colouring contest. Both our entrants won, because we figured that was the right thing to do.

Aniakovas won our highly desirable Monsterskine. He blogs at Our Cafe about, oh, all kinds of interesting things. He’s also on Twitter as @aniakovas.

JustmeKB also won, she(?) won some of our excellent monster stamps. Hurray! At this moment, we don’t know anything about JustMe, but perhaps the mystery will be solved in time.

I drew a monster for @JackoutLoud, who wanted a green monster with teeth.

And one for Marcy Crandle, who had a should monster. It was decided it should be a stormy colour, but also with pink. Marcy runs Superhero Self and is also on Twitter.

And one for Anglelique at Miscellanea Arts, who does interesting things with paper and is also on twitter. She wanted a tall monster.

Many of you asked if we would do something like this again. It’s not always easy for both of us to be online at the same time, but Willie will be around to chat and draw monsters on Sunday, at 7pm Grinnich time. Or, if you’re in another timezone, have a look at the counter:

Would be happy to see you there!

And, of course, because it was our launch party, that means our shop is now officially open. Check out the goods!

We have a handy timer counting down to the time of the party:

This is the link: http://tinychat.com/monsterjournals.

But where is it?

• It’s on Tinychat.com, in a chatroom that will be created on the day. The link will be right here, and on twitter. You won’t need to download or install anything, and you don’t need to sign up. It’s a simple as can be. You can just pick a nickname and you’re good to go.
• In the chatroom, Alexia and Willie will be broadcasting with webcams. You can simply type in the chat, or if you have a question or comment you can click the broadcast button and join us.
• If there’s any technical difficulties or you can’t find it, look for the hashtag #monsterparty. We’ll let you know what’s going on.

I’ve never been to a monsterparty before. What do I do?

• It’s very simple. If you go to the chatroom, you’ll be able to see and hear us, and you can type your comments or questions in the chat.
• We’ll tell you about monster whispering and show you pictures and video of our journals.
• We’ll play some party games. You can win little prizes.
• You can post links to stuff that’s relevant to what we’re talking about, but don’t just say “go to my site: www.monsterviagra.com” because that’s a bit spammy and annoying.
• If you’ve got a webcam set up, you can click “broadcast” and join the discussion. It may take 30 seconds or so for the link to get its act together, so it’s quicker to type in the chat, but you’re welcome to jump in.
• We can delete stuff from the chat or block people from broadcasting if we feel they’re not playing nice. We hope not to.  Just act like the friendly, interesting person you are and all will be fine.
• You can post about the party on twitter or invite your facebook friends or whatever, if you like. We’re open to everyone.

There will be no recording (that we know of) so if you miss it, you miss it. We hope you can make it though! See you soon.

Quick, if shaky, romp around my dining room table/staging area/Monster Journals headquarters. I share a bit about the limited edition journals, the rubber stamps and a quick little tour of a couple of tools I use for bookbinding.

It’s almost time!

I’m not afraid of spiders. Well, not exactly. But spiders aren’t my favourite creatures, either. Especially house spiders, those big ones that run like the devil and sometimes end up in the bathtub. Ick. Go away, you hairy creep.

So we used to have those spiders in the bathroom. A lot. No matter how often I dumped them out the window or flush them down the toilet (depending on how personally aggrieved I felt by their presence) they just kept coming back. Or maybe it was different ones.

One day I decided to stop trying to catch them and kill or defenestrate them, or do anything else that made me feel both cruel and slightly creeped out. Clearly, I figured, the ecological system of our bathroom has a space for a house spider, and catching them will only open that space for a new spider to fill it. I can’t stop them coming in, so I might as well stop putting them out.

I decided to call it Ben. Ben the spider. And whenever I saw him, instead of rushing around for a glass and a piece of card, I’d simply say, “good morning Ben,” the way you might to an obnoxious uncle who’s staying the weekend.

I never saw more than one Ben at the same time, so this illusion that there was only one spider, and he was a bit like a pet, held up pretty well. Even if I sometimes spotted Ben in the living room. By the time I found Ben curled up into a dry husk in the corner behind the toilet, it felt almost sad. Of course, a new spider turned up soon enough. I called that one Ben too, for continuity’s sake.

I have a similar relationship with one of my monsters. Actually, I’m not even sure it counts as a monster. I think of it more like the red weed from War of the Worlds, only it grows on my brain. I can hack at it, burn it, pull it up, but it’s never gone.

I’ve started calling it Bob.

Bob isn’t impressed with this name. Mind you, Bob isn’t unimpressed with it either, it is simply above and beyond any opinion on the matter. I think it has a malevolent kind of intelligence, but I’m not sure. It’s never said anything. I deal with emmisaries of Bob, monsters that have some of the same ideas, but never with Bob itself. Bob doesn’t argue. It doesn’t need to. It’s perfectly clear to everyone in this brain that Bob is here to stay and yes, things will always be like this.

Bob also seems to feel that whether or not I believe things will always be like this is completely irrelevant. Much like me calling it Bob. Bobobob bob.

Bob is a monster of shame and embarrasment, with a lot of fear mixed in. It is old, old stuff. And it probably is here to stay, I certanly run into Bob’s vines and roots and tentacles all over the place and there doesn’t seem to be a lot I can do about it.

But being able to go, “Oh, it’s only Bob,” helps. Just a little.

Picture credit: Thomas Shahan.

So here we ask: what’s your biggest monster?

Everyone is held back by fear sometimes. Everyone feels sometimes like they can’t, aren’t good enough, strong enough, talented enough. It’s a very real and painful thing. And as silly and crazy as the monster thing might seem sometimes, it really is about helping you with these feelings, and the voices of fear and inadequacy inside you.

We’d love to hear what is the hardest thing about this for you, where you get most stuck, so we can address those points in our monster whispering tips. Anonymous comments also welcome (so your monsters can’t come and hunt you down for talking about them. Scary!)

Sometimes your monsters are too big or too scary or too wrought with history and stuff that facing them or addressing them directly isn’t possible.

In cases like these, you can use allies to talk to your monsters on your behalf. One way to use allies is to meet with a friend or a coach or someone who also works with the monster metaphor, so they can talk to the monster. And then you just play the monster, and they do the whispering.

The other way is to simply invent an ally, an imaginary ally [link to imaginary things]. You can use someone you know as a template, or someone you used to know, or even a character you know well, like Doctor Who. (My own favourite ally.)

To have an ally talk to your monster, spend a little time imagining them, who they are and what they might say, and then start writing out the dialogue as Alexia describes here.

This can be harder than talking to your monster yourself, because you are now keeping track of two metaphorised parts of yourself rather than just one, but it also allows you to examine your monster’s issue from a little more distance. If you take the role of an impartial scribe, or a mute witness, you can let your ally and your monster talk about you, without getting too wrapped up in standing your ground or defending yourself or any of that stuff.

“I do understand what you’re saying, monster, but you standing there with the ticking clock in your hand creates a lot of tension in Willie.”

“Well, yes. She should feel tense. Everything is going horribly wrong.”

“But do you want her to be able to work well, so she can fix it?”

“Of course. She should work harder!”

“I think you’ll find, if you look back over your shared history together, that Willie works quite well when supported by structure, but not so well when under a lot of pressure.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re on her side!”

“No, really. Look back. When has pressure brought out the best in Willie? Give me an example. Don’t worry, she’s not here and I won’t tell her if you accidentally say something nice about something she did.”

“Hmmm… Actually, I can’t really think of an example right now…”

Carole Brown was one of the people who bought a monster in a box for Chocolate Sunday. She’s done a great post on her relationship with this monster, where it comes from and how she sees it.

Reasoning with her doesn’t work at all. She doesn’t understand that I’m working really hard right now to finish my book. She just wants to play.

Getting angry with her doesn’t work either. You can’t tell her to shush, shut up, be quiet or go away. Boy, is she stubborn! If she thinks I’m angry with her she will throw an all out tantrum and stamp her feet.

Find out what she does respond to: Making Friends With my Monster – the new rules of bookpublishing.