Mandi Bunga non-epic blog, or, The Opposite of Monumental

It is my birthday! [ARgh. No, it is not. I did not actually finish this in time. Two days late. But I did spend my birthday writing it!]

I swore to myself that I’d finish the Mandi Bunga epic blog by my birthday. Not for any special reason except maybe people would want to be nice to me and would probably read it if I asked them, compared to any other day. Also, because I know, with a terrible certainty, that if I don’t do it by today, I won’t do it at all.

So! I give you the epic Mandi Bunga blog, that’s turned out to be not really epic, but a collection of 10 fragments, sewn together by luck and sweat into something meaningful. When I think about it, that’s exactly how this project happened. It is the opposite of monumental.

 

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1. Super Mind Enzyme

Somewhere along the way, I stopped keeping proper sketchbooks. I can probably trace it back to when I started telling myself I couldn’t/didn’t want/didn’t need to draw.

For Mandi Bunga, I picked the cheapest blank notebook with a hard cover lying around and used it throughout. It became the single most important tool I had, a super enzyme for my compost pile of a mind. Scraps of ideas, doubts, anxiety, fear of failure, fear of success –  the notebook took it all, and broke it down into little nuggets of useable gold.

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2. Lynda Barry, or, Farewell Art World, Hello Myself

I went to her work again and again, a thirsty hyena looking for water, and drank deep from two books in particular – What It Is and Picture This. It looked and felt like the art I wanted to be making, bringing back all the excitement and wonder that my 7 years in the art world had sucked dry. I rediscovered drawing, not as a proof of talent/skill, but as a way to access what she calls ‘the unspeakable mind’ – that well of pain and joy that makes us who we are.

The realization that I’d spent years making art defined by the dry artspeak of project proposals and curators’ essays was devastating to me. Why, why had I done that? Because it’s what I learned in art school? Because that’s what the ‘art industry’ is, and I’m just a miserable worker making its cogs go round and round, in the hopes that one day I’ll rise to the top?

It was like waking up from a long, drugged sleep. It helped me to understand why participants in my workshops were so afraid to pick up their brushes and paint. It mirrored my own estrangement. I swore I would not spend another moment making things that pushed people further away from art and themselves. I held on to the feeling that Lynda’s work gave me, and used it as a guide to shape everything.

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3. Comma-rades

Commas & Industry is a PR and events agency started by my ex-housemate Ying, and manned by a fantastic motley crew: Stephanie, Liy, Maryann, Sue and Julia. It is small but mighty. I hired them to help me with WEEDS, which was the first time I admitted I needed proper help and actually did something about it. The result: holy sweet working chemistry, Batman!

There’s incredible value in working with people who are exactly your wavelength, but not necessarily from your field. It has to do with different tracks of thinking coming together to produce unexpected solutions. The reality is, without Commas, Mandi Bunga would still have happened, but it would never have achieved the same polish and coherence.

It’s like hitting a target. All artists know that every artwork will only ever be an approximation of their vision. You never hit the bullseye. You only hope to get as close as your skills and resources allow. This time, for various reasons, I got as close as I could have. One of those reasons is Commas & Industry.

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4. Repeat after me: only ever an approxmation…

I had the idea for Mandi Bunga way before I was asked to be part of Singapore Biennale. It was dreamed up for the streets of KL – people were to stand side by side and pass water, bucket brigade style, from point A to B. It was to be the most public spectacle imaginable, open to any person from the public to take part.

Early on, Zedeck predicted that I if I did this project at Singapore Biennale, I would struggle mightily with its context – the limitations, requirements and politics that come hand-in-hand with such a government-backed, institutionally-run blockbuster art event. Sure enough, I did.

The venue changed from a public park away from the city center to the lawn of the National Museum, a stone’s throw away from Singapore Art Museum (SAM), both right smack in the CBD. I wanted to bring it out of the center, where it would encounter more communities, but I failed.

I wanted people who are less visible in society to take part, like the elderly and migrants, but I also failed. I’d been allocated 20 days in Singapore. No time to meet people, no time to go to the ground. I pushed it as far as the parameters would go, but in the end, the context defined me and my work.

Still. To be able to walk in a parade, waving a yellow flag, on the streets of Singapore… I think of that, and a satisfied smile creeps over my face. This wouldn’t have happened if the National Museum wasn’t so close to SAM. Honor for choosing the right site goes to my friend and comrade, Biennale co-curator Khairuddin Hori. Sometimes the context gives you something you never dreamed of, and you’re left standing in a tiny, momentary space of freedom that wasn’t there before.

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5. The Network, or, Mandi Bunga beats Facebook’s Edgerank

We launched the project online with a call for participants, focusing almost exclusively on Facebook and Twitter. There was no Plan B, and without participants, Mandi Bunga basically… wasn’t going to happen.

Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm ensures that what you share will only reach 15 percent of your subscribers. For the privilege of being connected to your own network, you must pay. I decided that we were NOT going to pay to promote the open call. No, I’m not a masochist. This isn’t about ego.

To me, the Network is more than the number of my FB fans. Like cycling and gardening, it’s a tool that bears the seeds of a peaceful and permanent revolution – one that’s not based solely on political victory, but on developing living, breathing connections.

When we pay for connections, we exploit human relationships as currency – all that matters is that there are eyeballs attached to the person on the other side of the screen. Instead of being the great leveler, the Network becomes another place where the rich get more and corporations grow fat.

I needed to know that the Internet isn’t just another media outlet controlled by new corporate gatekeepers who are mining our human attention spans like raw minerals.

Despite Edgerank, the Network shared and spread Mandi Bunga. By the second day, the list of sign-ups was overflowing. The Internet had generated more than likes and retweets and bitchy blogs about things that don’t matter. It had helped me Make Something Happen.

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6. Hey! Themesong time! The former Captain James T. Kirk will take us there: 

7. Bersih

Yes, Mandi Bunga was inspired by Bersih. The colour yellow, besides looking super cute and cheerful, is a direct reference to the movement. But people looking at Mandi Bunga as a political statement will be disappointed.

Hell, even I’m disappointed! I wish it WERE as simple as staging a Bersih-like demonstration in Singapore and getting away with it under the guise of art. Maybe it would have made politicians sit up. Maybe it would have caused more ripples than it did and made me a fucking famous controversial art-revolutionary.

The thing is, it wouldn’t have been very good art. Or good thinking. Or good politics. But most of all, it would have meant using over 100 people for my own ends without giving them anything in return.

My experience with Bersih left me both energized and confused. It called itself a people’s movement, but didn’t consult with the people. Instead, it had charismatic heroes and leaders who negotiated with kings – the ‘people’ were alternately the bargaining chip or trump card in a high stakes poker game. And yet, the experience of being on the street with a sea of fellow citizens was indescribable… a glimpse of human solidarity and brotherhood, mingled with the smell of sweat and blood.

For a long while, I didn’t know what to do with my contradictory feelings about Bersih. I was ashamed of them. I wanted the easy narrative. I wanted to be a Righteous Warrior for Urgent Change dammit!

In the end though, I couldn’t hide from the doubts. They ate away at me until I took them and turned them into Mandi Bunga.

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8. People, Part I

“Despite the horse race elections, manifestos, and movements, the truth is most of the time for most people, political systems don’t mean much. For all activists and politicians see excitement and power in their bloodsports, most people, and probably the healthier sorts, prefer to get on with their lives regardless of who’s in charge. They spend their time with family and meeting friends for coffee and trying to understand what makes a good life. And it is these people, not the power players, who keep us fed and warm in winter and give us the soft curve of a ceramic cup in hand, who make the memory and fabric of a place. It is details and human labor that give the name of home to the cities and towns that earn that name inside of people. Society is mostly built away from power, by the politically distant and ideologically vague.” – Quinn Norton

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9. Giving up ownership, not authorship* (*borrowed from The New Rules of Public Art)

One criticism of the performance was that it looked sloppy. It’s true, people kept coming in and out of the ‘sacred’ performance space, taking pictures and interacting with participants. In fact, when I arrived with the last group at the National Museum, I panicked a little when I saw the bathers weren’t neatly in position ready to perform – they were sitting around, chatting, selfie-ing, tweeting, laughing. I remember thinking for a split second: oh my god this does not look like an artwork.

But I came to my senses, and realized this was exactly what I had meant it to be.

Consider this: Sometimes ‘sloppiness’, open-endedness and lack of polish (I prefer ‘informality’) is not an accident, but an intended outcome. The thing looks the way it’s supposed to feel.

What does giving up ownership feel like? It feels like letting go of control. It’s risky and vulnerable and hard to trust people to make their own decisions. Like, what if people didn’t show up? Well, that’s that. Gotta accept failure as an outcome.

But it can also make things easy: people kept asking what would happen if it rained. I said: I don’t know. If it rains, we’ll discuss and decide together what to do. Somehow, this answer was enough for them, and for me. It helped us endure what none of us could control.

What does keeping authorship (I prefer ‘stewardship’) mean?  To me, it’s this: doing your utmost to encourage the conditions and maintain the bonds that made people want to do this in the first place.

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10. People, Part II

Have you ever watched someone making art? Their face changes. Concentration and relaxation comes over them at the same time. They open up, become easy to talk to.

Three observations from interacting with close to 140 people who took part in the sarong-painting workshops:

1. Most people (unless they’re working in the arts) have lost their relationship to making art. It’s unbearable to witness. Over and over, I heard things like: ‘I haven’t picked up a brush in 20 years, except to paint my house’ ‘I’m not creative’ ‘I don’t know how to draw’ ‘Never thought I’d be doing this’. Heartbreakingly, they felt the need to apologize: ‘Sorry *nervous laughter*, I’m bad at art lah’. I do not know how this has happened. It was like encountering a forrest that had lost its leaves.

We cannot know how this loss has affected our ability to relate to ourselves, other people and our world, but I will say this: almost every person who left the workshops told me it was ‘relaxing’, ‘therapeutic’, ‘I really needed that’, ‘I wish I could do this more’ and that it made them happy.

2. People are fragile and vulnerable. They get hurt and worried and anxious about everything, like… they don’t have enough time, or they’ve had a really hard year, they don’t know what they’re doing, their father has cancer, they want to spend more time with their mother, they’re worried about their daughter, they’re insecure about their body… it goes on. Does this sound like you? Hey! It sounds like me.

But they’re are brave and beautiful too, in the most everyday, ordinary way. They care. They hope. They abide. They’re funny.

3. It seemed to me that what was most important to people, besides themselves, was other people.

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At the end…

There is a feeling that lies at the end of every project, that has very little to do with whether it was a failure or success. It’s a kind of satisfaction… a peace of mind. I’ve been chasing it like an addict for years. That feeling is what I live for, the moment when I can sit down and say: I did it.

This time, that familiar and beloved drug had a new dimension: we did it.

I’m only starting to grasp what that really means.

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New brog! What I Did This Year

Dear people, it is my birthday. 

Come, celebrate and cringe along with me! I’m going to go through all the things I did this year.

Are you ready? (Warning: epic post) 

Department of Radical Reinvention of the Self and Art

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This year, I started to disconnect from being a ‘gallery’ artist. I mean, I’ve always DIY-ed a bunch of different stuff, but I kept relying on the gallery exhibition model as the central engine – the seat of my art, so to speak. The gallery was where I got my money, my satisfaction and my audience. I was building my career around it. 

2012 has been a slow, painful process of rethinking and reinventing everything I do. I revamped my website and came up with a proper logo, based on a tattoo I have on my right shoulder. 

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I started this blog where I promised myself I would write in the most straightforward, honest way possible, no matter how vulnerable it made me. Radical inclusivity as a natural outcome of radical self-acceptance, and vice versa…

Or, as Stefan Sagmeister put it: Trying to Look Good Limits My Fucking Life (He didn’t say fuck, I did)

I learnt to say and write fuck as many times as I like from Amanda Fucking Palmer. I also learned alot from her about what art can be when you have self-belief, and back that up by investing in yourself, for real. This doesn’t mean you’re being selfish or narcissistic, but in fact allows you share the best of what you do with others. 

Another thing Amanda Palmer gave me the courage to do: for the first time, I sang and played ukulele live on a real stage in front of a real audience. Hearing my own voice amounted to nothing less than a mini personal revolution. 

I sound ok. Not great, but I think you can tell from the video that the performance was really a tightrope walk in overcoming fear. This is the truth I have learned, dear people. You dream one day you will be ‘good enough’ to do The Thing You Want, but that day when you are free of fear will never come. 

‘Sing, even if people tell you that you can’t sing’People don’t give you permission, so you have to give yourself permission. It is ok. It is OKAY. Whatever it is, do it. And do it now, not when you’re ready.

I love you and you will find others who will too. 

I created an alter ego STiNky pOOdLe for the performance. The name comes from a little song by another hero of mine, Tangela Tricoli. Here’s STiNky pOOdLe with Grace Chin, the wonderful lady who organized SCALE: Wisdom Of The Fools, the gig I played at (which btw, was Time Out KL’s Best Gig of the Year!):

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My friend Shahril Nizam painted a portrait of STiNky pOOdLe (scroll down) that took my breath away. I don’t know what’s next. I want to write stinky punk songs, maybe make a stinky zine full of vaginas and sex and pain and beauty. 

Also in the Department of Firsts: Me, non-husband Zedeck, aforementioned Shahril and Azharr Rudin went on a train and made a short film together. This is us being zombies after 7 hours:

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Don’t let this shot fool you, the film itself, VIA, is a thing of beauty. So is all of Azharr’s work – my favorite is his documentary about the boat builders of Pulau Duyung

Department of Money Making

I did make some gallery art, early in the year. Portable versions of a previous installation about banned books. I killed my wrist and shoulder bending lots of brass wire into graphs. 

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Photo by The Longue Duree, who wrote a ‘non-review’ of the show.

The works were shown in Singapore, then in another exhibition that travelled to Indonesia. I can’t describe my relief when I heard all 3 editions and the artist proof sold out. The money from this sale has kept us afloat for the better part of the year. 

I appreciate that gallery sales have been my main source of income over the years. But it feels too much like winning the lottery, and I was RM10,000 out of pocket for 5 months before I actually got paid. I’m lucky enough to have a safety net of parental support, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the math isn’t working. It’s hard to build a life on unsteady ground. 

Another thing I did for money was a series of drawings of childhood games, which will eventually be turned into flip-books (a project by aforementioned Grace Chin). Over 250 drawings later, my shoulder was ready to fall off. On the other hand, I’m now best friends with a graphics tablet, which I’d never used before. 

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Department of Things That Didn’t Take Off: 

We had big plans for this series of posters in support of queer people in Malaysia. But we stalled and hesitated and delayed, partly due to fear of an almost guaranteed backlash. A couple of posters were featured on CEKU’s site and included in the Violence is Not Our Culture art notebook. This is one project I plan to resurrect soon. 

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This proposal for a poster project got sent around, but never went anywhere. I loved making a proposal in poster format instead of the usual mindless text. One day I want to make this happen. 

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A proposal I did with Varsha, for a public performance of eating together. We made plans for a table cloth that has sleeves and masks attached. The organizers fell through, but we’ll make this happen one day. Look! Masks with long tongues! C’mon, it’s fucking awesome. 

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Department of Art I’m Proud to Have Made: 

Bersih3.0 happened. I made and wore a yellow dress covered in yellow flowers

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Thus came about #bungaBERSIH

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This short video I made in my garden on a sunny day. A small thing I’m proud of. It was a heavy subject – the 11 March Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. I tried to find a way to say what I wanted to say, something that held both pain and hope without falling prey to sentimentality. 

Me, Rahmat and Poodien (my Buka Kolektif brothers) finally got together and birthed a book documenting the 2011 Buka Jalan Performance Art Festival. We saw it through. We closed the chapter, and now we can move on to the future. I’m proud of us. 

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Department of What’s Next

I have been talking about the Epic Project for awhile now. Alot of groundwork is being done (proposal writing, money seeking – all that FUN art stuff no one ever hears about) and you’re going to start seeing actual art early next year. 

I can tell you this:

I am developing a computer game.

It will be downloadable free worldwide. 

It tells a story about finding your way. 

Dear person reading this, thank you for being here. This is going to seem totally shameless and non-Asian, but fuck it. For my birthday, I’m going to ask for a present: 

Keep following me, and tell me what you’re thinking. You can sign up for my mailing list , subscribe to the blog  or just keep checking in. Whether you’re family (hi mom! hi dad!), friend or stranger, this is the best present you can give me – it will help me make the art I want to make and share it with you. 

The art I want to make is meaningless without you.

Love from me to you, at age 32,
Sharon @ STiNky pOOdLe 

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More Gates and Grilles

I’m continuing to collect gates and grilles as we travel.

This gorgeous art deco one was taken near Jonker Walk, Melaka. Whatever happens to the building behind it, I hope they save the gate.

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This one is at Sam Poh Teng temple, also Melaka. We went there to search out the Sam Poh well, which was in one of our old postcards. We found it!

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More gates and grilles on my Pinterest (thesharonchin).

In Ipoh now, about to check out. We’re slowly creeping north. Gotta go, more soon.

We are going on a roadtrip

Yes, me and non-husband Zedeck are packing up and going on a motherfuckin’ roadtrip.

Here is our map:

Here is our itinerary:

I will be collecting visual material for my Epic Project.

Zedeck will attempt to finish his epic book-in-making on the road.

and and AND (oh, you will love this part so much)…

We are going to track down places in a bunch of old postcards that belonged to Zedeck’s parents. Here are a few of them:

SINGAPORE (can you believe it?):

JOHORE CAUSEWAY:

ST. JOHN’S FORT (A’Famosa):

PORT SWETTENHAM (Port Klang):

BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF KUALA LUMPUR TOWN (Yes, this is for real):

A TIN MINE DREDGE, KL (I love how this made it onto a postcard):

PENANG ROAD:

THE NEW DAM IN CAMERON HIGHLANDS:

I’ll try to update as much as I can on the road, either here or on mah Twitter. But I am notoriously bad at recording my travels – I get too caught up in living and being.

The land, the sky, the roads, the people, the rivers, the sea. We leave early tomorrow.

This is happening, it’s happening. I can’t wait but I also wish I could sit here forever and write to you about this feeling.

Should I bring my ukulele?

Love, Sharon

UPDATE: When @rezasalleh says you should bring the ukulele, then well, the ukulele is gonna be brought.

Art proposals: Why they’re Difficult, and Important

I’ve spent the last few days trying to finish a proposal for my epic art/multimedia/videogame/genre-busting/enterprise project.

As usual, it’s eating up more time and sweat than I thought it would. First steps always do. They’re the litmus test. If you can’t get past this stage, how are you going to hold up to the rest of the journey?

Halfway through, in a one of those fits of despair-clarity (desclarity? clarpairity?) I tweeted: Proposal writing is like pushing a dream through the sieve of reality.

No matter what project you’re trying to birth, this is one of the most difficult things to do. It’s also one of the most important.

I’ve written probably more than a dozen proposals – for myself and others. Hanim used to call me ulat proposal or the proposal worm. I like that. A worm is the right thing emulate. You’re in the darkness, turning the soil, working hard, trying to prepare the ground where (hopefully) your 250ft Tualang tree is going to grow.

Be a worm, my comrades!

I’ve realized that the ones closest to your heart are the hardest to write. This year is the first time in a long, long while that I’ve written proposals for myself, not as an application for a grant, residency or external opportunity of some kind. There’s no deadline, except the passing of the days, the realization that… FUCK, is it October already?… the end of the year is coming.

I’ve talked a lot about this epic project to friends – how it’s going to be a total shift, what it’s going to take, the outfit I plan to wear at the launch. But writing it down sets it in stone. No turning back. It becomes real, to you.

So real that, as I was scheduling the work plan and budget, my heart started pounding uncontrollably. ‘Chill the fuck out’, I ordered my brain. ‘It’s art, not saving lives.’

The enormity of the task felt overwhelming, and also slightly ridiculous. Was it right to dedicate so much effort to realizing a personal vision? Did it not smell a little of hubris? Selfishness? I saw a wave coming towards me, completely swallowing up my life for months, perhaps even years. Shouldn’t I use this life towards a greater good? Art… pffft.

These are the kind of powerfully stupid thoughts that kill worthy dreams before they even start. Where do they come from? I cringe as I write them down. Do you get them?

I can’t really answer whether art is more important than say, education or saving the environment or bringing down a corrupt government. But I do know this: many best efforts go awry, and many good intentions do harm. So how? I don’t know. I’ve chosen the Taoist/anarchist route: do what only you can do. What no one else can do. Keep to that, and maybe I’ll do less wrong. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even do some good in the bargain.

Incidentally, that last paragraph is basically what the Epic Project (that what I’ll call it from now on, until I’m prepared to reveal the proper title) is all about.

Fucking hell. I figured it out. I was dead stuck at the ‘Project Context and Significance’ part of the proposal. That’s it. Taoism. Anarchism. Doing only what you can do.

God, I love blogging. Thank you, imaginary readers. You help me in unimaginable ways.

Now back to proposal writing.

Why is it difficult? Because it’s a start.

Why is it important? So that you can see what you need to finish.

I started to calm down as I plowed through the business plan and working schedule. I broke it down into parts, and then into smaller parts. I cut out anything that wasn’t absolutely essential, then thought hard about what I could realistically accomplish, and gave myself more time. I took a deep breath and I thought…

I can do this. I think.

Pics: I was in Sabah recently and went on a canopy walk amongst Tualang trees that were as hard as rock, and hundreds of years old. I felt like a little seed invited to a party by living ancients. It was cool. 

~

A very long P.S. –

From a professional artist point of view, writing clear and effective proposals is a skill well worth developing. It takes practice, but it can be done. The question is, do you want to do it, and do you need to?

Many artists have difficulty describing their work in words. It feels unnatural, something of a ‘mistranslation’ when you want your art to speak for itself. If you want to pursue the path of getting gallery exhibitions, grants, funding or residencies, you need to write good proposals. This is because the intersections of art, commerce and social-economic development are getting more complicated and sophisticated. It’s a bureaucratic jungle. If artists want to grow there, they have to justify their work in terms of objectives, goals and wider social significance.

There are choices, other paths to take. That’s not the only way to be an artist. You can focus on engaging your audience the way YOU want to, by talking about your art the way YOU want to, and so gain more autonomy through self-representation. That’s what I’m trying to do with this blog.

However! Whether it’s for a selection committee or for personal use, writing a proposal is a helpful tool (whatever the ‘project’, e.g. running a marathon, writing a cookbook, starting a recycling campaign, planning an urban garden, etc). It kicks the logical, analytical, left-brain part of yourself into gear. It sends a clear signal to your central system: no kidding around. I. AM. Doing. This. Because this is how I’m going to do it.

So, try it out. There are some good tips out there on the interweb.

I’m thinking of doing a practical guide on How To Write a Project Proposal. I mean, a proper one, with templates and real instructions. Drop me an email or a comment if you think that’s a good idea.