Bite-sized creativity
A guide to being creative alongside having a full-time job
I used to center my life around my creative curiosities. I got up at 4:30AM to take pictures of the sun as it slipped past the Hong Kong mountains and into the skies. I rolled out of bed at midnight, awake with a revelation about my upbringing that just had to be written into a blog post in the next two hours. I skipped economics class to attend a book talk from Ken Liu. Chasing curiosities required a big chunk of time and a lot of effort, but I had the bandwidth to run these creative marathons. As most undergraduates did, I had an abundance of unoccupied hours. I thought filling them up with fun passion projects would one day amount to a magnum opus, like a Pulitzer-worthy novel or an epic mural.
When I graduated, so did my wishful thinking. Three years into working as a full-time banking journalist, I had a portfolio of the finance articles that I wrote but nothing to show for my creative self expression. Passion projects did not fit in my spreadsheet of a schedule. But no matter.
I was proud of my work ethic. I took my job seriously as if my self worth depended on it. I poured all my creative juice into the articles I wrote for my publication. I stayed up late, taking calls with US-based editors in hopes that they would promote me. Sure, I wasn’t writing poetry or blog posts for self-expression like I used to. That’s what children do with all their spare time. I had a real grown-up job now. I was squeezing all my creative energy into piecing interview quotes into cohesive reads. I didn’t have any brain capacity left to turn thoughts into stanzas.
Then the bonus announcement came. It was an amount so paltry that I asked my manager if it was missing a zero. I counted all the overtime hours, all the energy I expended, for a meagre 1.5% bonus. I looked at my three-year portfolio, articles that pleased my editors, readers, and sources. They had my byline, but none of me.
I decided then that I wanted a body of work that represented Becky. To do that, I had to allocate some of my energy for myself.
The timing couldn’t have been better. It was lockdown year, so there was an abundance of unoccupied hours. I could cook a shrimp risotto dinner. I could keep binging Indian Matchmaking because that’s the newest series Netflix dropped into the COVID canon. I could watch what happens to Ellie from Jin’s The Last of Us II playthrough. Jin has been gaming throughout the evenings. She derived a lot of enjoyment out of this hobby of hers. I used to enjoy writing poetry, taking photographs, and reading. Where were those hobbies now?
I embarked on my search. I wanted something creative, but I didn’t have the luxury of student-esque summer breaks when I could pour ten weeks into something. Instead, I needed to find a project approachable enough that it could fit into my adult working hours. I also wanted something analog (to counter staring at screens for work) and not writing-related (since that was my job).
The internet rabbit hole led me to bullet journaling, a creative activity that had a productivity spin. I watched footage of people doodling on blank dot-grid notebooks and flourishing headers to suit their planning needs. I walked to the art store the next morning to pick up my new hobby of choice: a set of gouache paints. I already had blank notebooks scattered around my flat. Doodling in them would be fun. It won’t take up a lot of time. I began to approach creativity through small bites.
Chomp. I had an hour before dinner (pepperoni pizza) was going to arrive. I squeezed turquoise paint out of its tube and onto a porcelain palette. I logged onto Skillshare. I drew flowers for fifteen minutes.
Chomp. My colleagues were running ten minutes late. I stood near the gates of the train station and pulled out an A6-sized sketchbook. I drew the turnstiles with a fineliner pen.
Chomp. My friends and I are at the beach. We were going to be there until Harry the dachshund would tire out. I carved out half an hour painting the landscape.
I started to look forward to these bite-sized creative pursuits when I woke up. How quickly can I eat my lunch so I have enough time to paint? What colour combinations would I use today? Which park near the office is best lit by the noon sun?
Though my bite-sized creativity didn’t result in monetary profit, I finally had an outlet for self-expression. When I’m painting, I have the autonomy to create a postcard of my purview. In the short period since starting to paint, I had a sketchbook that felt like an extension of myself. I stopped relying on my employer to make me feel fulfilled. A job is just a job, but my creative hobby became what I’m proud of.
Creativity did not demand total abandonment of the grind that pays the bills. I did not need to make a masterpiece, just a thumbnail that depicted my day. Squeezing in twenty minutes of art into my lunch break takes just as much time as buying a coffee down the road.
I didn’t have to create my magnum opus. Instead, I focused on bite-sized creativity. These are some ways I break creativity down to smaller bites:
Scale down. Instead of writing a novel, write an essay. Instead of writing a 5,000-word essay, write 500. Instead of writing 500 words, write an outline. A project can be broken down infinitely to tinier and tinier drops until it’s no longer an overwhelming cloud.
Bring it with you. If I want to take more photographs, I bring my camera to work with me. The camera doesn’t just sit enclosed in my backpack. It is slung in front of my chest. The lens cap is in my pocket. If the photograph-worthy moment appears, all I need to do is hit the shutter.
Start for 5 minutes. Sometimes the perfect day comes. It’s rainy, my beach plans are cancelled, and it’s opportune timing to make a mess on the canvas in the comfort of my home. The blank white space is calling, but so is Netflix. Start making a mark and commit to it for just five minutes. 300 seconds is better than zero.
Find excuses to create more. When I need a picture for my Substack essay, I could easily look up a royalty-free stock photo on Unsplash. Alternatively, I could shoot that photo I want myself. I can relinquish creating for convenience (Unsplash), or I could make a conscious effort to create more.
Send friends my own stuff. If a friend asks for my favorite minced pork recipe, I don’t just send a link. I take the recipe I followed for reference, add some touches on where I rebelled (e.g. substituting sugar out for honey), and send them my own recipe. These small touches are an act of creativity too.
These are some other bite-sized creativity examples I do when I'm not painting:
making a new chicken dish for dinner (30 mins)
editing Write of Passage student essays (two hours in the evening)
rearranging the groceries in my fridge (while phoning my friend)
reading a fiction book (before bedtime)
taking my film camera out after a hurricane (one Sunday morning)
The shift to a creative life required much less heavy lifts than I thought. By approaching creativity one bite at a time, it was easy to slot a sliver of activity in my work-dominated schedule.
My life now centers around my creative curiosities again. And my abundance of hours? Occupied with the best creative activities.
This essay is my Write of Passage core idea assignment. Thank you to friends who support this creative endeavor: Smrati Humar, , , , , , , , , Neale Haddon, and .
Looking back: In the nineteenth century, Othniel C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, the nation’s two leading paleontologists, engaged in a bitter competition to collect dinosaur fossils in the American West. They raided each other’s quarries, bribed each other’s crews, and vilified each other in print and at scientific meetings. In 1890, the New York Herald began a series of sensational articles about the controversy with the headline “Scientists Wage Bitter Warfare.” The rivalry has since become known as the Bone Wars. — Source: The Day the Dinosaurs Died via The New Yorker.
Update log:
📖 Reading The Algebra of Wealth (46% completed) by Scott Galloway.
🛠️ Reading Make Something Wonderful, per
’s recommendation.💼 It’s annual work performance review week at the office. It’s once again a reminder that work should not determine your self worth.
🧡 Saw Hwasa live at her first fan concert in Hong Kong. I saw her with Mamamoo a few years ago. She was already so good before, and she’s gotten so much better.
🦟 I’m back doing plein air. Was completely devoured by mosquitoes so no more parks and small lakes until the fall.
🗞️ Submitted my sole proprietorship registration. She’s a businesswoman, baybee.
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I've been looking forward to your core idea essay since last month, and it did not disappoint. When I asked you how you write, I remember you saying you write in the in betweens. I've always admired that part about you—how much value you put into the little moments, how they become more meaningful because of how you approach them. I hope you know how much your writing continues to inspire me.
Monastic creation - something I haven't adopted much but I like the sense of pursuit :)