Yeah, I think I remember hearing that back when this was all first a thing. It’s definitely easier to accomplish when you don’t have anything else fucking going on, so I can see it being useful in a situation where making art is your full-time job, or you only have a part-time job, or maybe you are just overall in possession of a less difficult brain than mine. 

 A year ago, I got to go visit the art school I graduated from and it was a highly emotional experience for a number of reasons but this drawing something everyday for October phenomenon happened just after I graduated and so it wasn’t a thing that we were doing when I was there as a student. But when I walked around they had a sign on the wall (along with a bunch of thesis memes that I would have really really enjoyed if those had been a thing when I was there also) that said “inktober isn’t healthy for all artists, take care of yourself.” And even though I had stopped trying to do it for a year or two I still felt like some kind of failure for having not been able to complete it ever, and I was so relieved to see that sign even though I still kind of believed that I was not Measuring Up somehow.  I was telling myself ‘Yeah, THIS’ and even kind of preaching it outwardly, but I still didn’t believe it in the very core of me.  I really thought I was just Not Good Enough and that’s why I couldn’t do it. 

This year cured me of that feeling, but not because I finished it so much as I now know what my circumstances would have had to be all this time for me to finish it.

It makes sense as an exercise to have just to give you a habit of making things more often especially if you are working in art full-time which I would much rather do than anything else, but to do it on top of every circumstance that I have had since it became popular was never going to be possible for me, and now I’m never going to feel like I’m not enough for not doing it every year ever again. It’s great for ‘I’m in a rut, I need to just not think too hard and make a random thing every day, stretch my brain a bit.’  But I also think every day is not really a good idea even though a lot of artist blogs will tell you that you’re not really an artist or a writer unless you do the thing every single day. We’re just not all equipped for that be it physically or circumstantially or both, and it would be cool if it were not treated as a failing or not wanting it enough, you know?