Got my two pages worth of pencils in, really loose though.
Today was less than ideal tbh. Lost a good 4-5 hours on troubleshooting a fulfillment thing (Paypal not letting me buy/print shipping labels) and then my postal scale decided to stop working.
Neither issue has been resolved.
And that is what really ticks me off. To spend so much time on something and still not have it fixed. The thing they don't tell you is that to operate as an independent artist—truly independent, with no ongoing connection to companies, collectives, galleries, agents, nothing—you do a lot more than make the art. Even when operating as a sole individual, multiple “departments” operate within your practice: the accounting department, retail department (a simple webshop is still a form of retail), fulfillment department, customer service department, marketing department, catering department (hey, you gotta eat), supplies department, technical support department, and of course the production department. And you have to do everything yourself.
And if there is the slightest bit of hiccup in the performance of any of those departments, it is likely to cause a domino effect across all other departments, and that's no good. You want everything to operate smoothly and efficiently across the board, but hiccups are always going to happen, some worse than others. The faster you resolve any such hiccups, the better the engine [that is your entire existence] runs.
9:00PM now. Will have to spend the evening looking into fast and effective solutions to the issues at hand so I can get back to work tomorrow with a clear head. I'll be able to tighten those pages up as I ink.