I am back with abridged notes after missing yet another week because I was traveling. Even though I love travel (much more so for pleasure, than for work), it also feels like a disruption. If it is me traveling, I miss home, and the food, sleep and general sense of routine that come with it. If it is my partner traveling, while I enjoy the quiet time, I miss the magical completion of chores that he does and my daily human contact. And if either of us is traveling for work on a weekend, it is heretical in my books.
I am constantly in awe of friends who have to travel for work often and have taken that into their stride. I want to say that I am jealous of how well they cope with travel, but I have been trying hard to remember that the grass always seems greener on the other side. Last year, I asked a friend about it, and she said that she simply doesn’t think of travel as a disruption because that is what her life is, and she finds thinking of it like that counter-productive. At the time, I found her answer insufficient. But the more I have thought about it since, I think what was insufficient was my own follow-up – I never asked her how she got there, or if she has always felt like this.
2019 has already been full of travel, and I expect the rest of the year to be the same. I have been whiny as hell every time a trip has been forthcoming, but I haven’t found being alone at home half as bad as I was expecting. I am also very excited about a conference that I hope to attend soon. So maybe this year will be the one when I figure out this travel thing?
Two weeks ago, I won an award for the book cover I designed for Zubaan Books’ “Centrepiece: New Writing and Art from Northeast India.” I really enjoy designing book covers, even though I have worked on less than a dozen in all my time working as a designer. Why don’t I design more book covers? This is a question I have asked myself a few times over the years, and this award has given me just enough validation to ask it more often that I would like. Time to do something about it! Here’s my short to-do list –
Add book and book cover design work to my website. This is a no-brainer and was always supposed to happen, but working on this website somehow always takes the backseat.
Take some action on the self-initiated project about book covers I have been mulling over for a year and a half. Yes it will be work and yes I probably have too much to do as it is. But I need to find a way to make it happen.
Catch up with people I know who do work in book cover design, and better understand how they get business and how they approach the work.
Maybe cold-email a few people? I don’t imagine this works and I am so terrible at this, but no harm in trying, right?