Sometimes the body is working for you, you can get your breathing right, and sometimes not. It depends upon what’s happening in your life, but it’s your job to be consistent with the practice.

Set a sleep pattern. Sleep is the parentheses of your day; decide how much you need (I recommend 6-8), then be religious about getting that exact amount. Disable your snooze button and address yourself in harsh terms if you don’t get out of bed immediately.

I’ve had major failures based on an inability to either say “no” or “I need a break” or “I need a pause,” or to just give some indication that I was floundering and that I was not doing okay.

Things That Are Actually Helping Me Write My Book:

Notebooks. Have several, write in them whenever I want. None have any special reason for being other than I might need a place to handwrite my next thing. But I adore each and every one and care for it as if it will be my last.

I feel like I’ve built up a wall of denial over time where I’m just like, “Okay, it’s worked out for this long. I’m just going to trust that it’s going to keep on working.”

I don’t wanna do anything unless I’m gonna put my all into it and make it the best thing I could possibly make. I can’t do that unless I charge what it’s worth.

There’s this idea of, “I just want to be able to not have a job and live off my work.” But that mindset can be detrimental to your work, you know? That’s why having a job can be helpful. You don’t want to be scrambling to get some anointed status of “artist living off their work.”

You try, and you try, and you try, and you just, more often than not, do not see the fruits of your labor. But it’s important to keep at it. I’m at a place now that I didn’t think I would be several years ago, and I’m sure in many years I’ll be at an even better place, working on bigger and better projects.

The way that I metabolized that internal hell is just by learning to be with myself again in a really decisive way, and by inputting so much more music and doing so much more thinking. I’m still in the throes of doing this.

Whether I succeed or fail doesn’t really matter because it’ll be interesting and I’ll learn something from it.

If I had to depend on auditions, or if I were waiting for other people to put me in their work, I think I would have a lot of anxiety about that. Making my own stuff has allowed other people to understand how I can be integrated into their work as well. I’m creating a perfect fit for myself.

​​Nobody knows everything, we’re all constantly learning. I want to be in that space where I’m able to learn from others and then others can learn from me.

It’s important to find people you have things in common with, who aren’t scared to express those shared values; people with whom you can build and create. People you can support and who can support you, in your projects, initiatives, creative practice, and also as humans and family. I think being queer also brings a special way of building community; we have to build community in order to survive.

There are certain themes that keep re-emerging in my work that have to do with what it is to be together with others, what it is to create community in home, what it is to have attachments to people, what it is to have a sense of belonging, what it is to forge some space that you can occupy.

My vision is not separate from my community. They both are always working together, nourishing each other, it’s all going in a cycle.