Lists

I was sitting here unable to think of a title and thought to myself, “Oh I know, I’ll go to the list on my phone of Substack titles and pick something from there.” Picked up the phone, thought “List,” and boom… title. If you’re thinking to itself, that’s not how writing works, that’s where you’re incorrect. That’s not how writing works you, it’s how writing works for me. Painting works that way for me as well, just in case you’re curious about that process. If you read my previous article titled “Copy Paste,” I outline my formula for writing there and in other previous articles as well.

Why are lists good? How many times have you been to the grocery store for that one specific item and come home without said item and with 10 other things you remembered you needed? That’s never happened to you? Wow.

I have lists on my phone for all kinds of things. In fact, I often joke that my phone is worth a billion dollars. You think I’m joking however my mind is always working, thinking in tangents and possibilities. Would I say it always works for myself? I’m working on that and that’s why I’m in school for my MBA.

6 years ago, I would have never imagined I’d be back in school and getting my MBA of all things. There were a lot of things I imagined for myself back in 2020 and as of this moment, I have yet to do any of those things. Instead I am doing other things. Does that make me a failure? Again, it depends on who’s looking at me. To tech bros, Wall Street, my family, my parents and people I used to know, the answer is yes.

Do you know who says no? My inner child. My inner child is sooo freaking proud of me and so’s my inner teenager. My inner child is proud of me because I am such a creative individual, I don’t just paint, I turned my paintings into abstract coloring books. Are they ordinary coloring books? Are you kidding? Who said I was an ordinary?

My coloring books are as unique as I am and I designed them around a whole user experience. In my first coloring book (available on Amazon https://a.co/d/02GeT3OJ) titled, “Color With Me: From Rebirth to Becoming,” I turned 13 (out of 100) of my abstract art pieces into black and white images, shared with you the title, the intentions as well as the music behind each piece.

How you may ask? I integrated a QR code that takes you to a landing page that shows you the original painting (meant for inspiration not replication) as well as the embedded Spotify playlist or YouTube subliminal I listened to as I created the art. Does that sound like an ordinary schmordinary coloring book to you? It’s a whole vibe and that’s what I wanted people to experience.

Then the 2nd book (https://a.co/d/0gnKxgba) came around and I thought to myself, how can I continue to evolve the coloring book? My mentor’s son asked for a kid’s version, someone on TikTok commented that her autistic son loved coloring and music and a 3rd commenter asked if the images could be larger. I thought about all of that and wondered, how can people color together and how can I make the images bigger?

That led to me decide to do facing pages. That’s right, the left page also has an image in addition to the page on the right. For funsies and to keep it interesting, sometimes the 2 images are the left and right side of an image and sometimes you’re both coloring the exact same image. Don’t worry, it’s very apparent. Why did I do that? Because I want you to be able to color with someone whether that’s a partner, grandparent, cousin, friend or even if you just want to color both sides of the same image.

If you think about it, I already innovated the first time by creating the first coloring book and here I am further innovating on the 2nd book. Did I learn lessons along the way? Absolutely. The first one was called “Create With Me,” instead of “Color With Me,” it also had the original painting as the cover so you can’t really tell it’s a coloring book. I renamed it a few weeks in when I realized that lesson so anyone that has Create With Me, accidentally has a collector’s edition.

I’ve even considered putting version 1 somewhere. Or version 2 bc sometimes the differences are so subtle that you’d have to be eagle eyed to find them. Don’t worry, I am eagle eyed so that’s how I find the differences and make the changes.

Why is my inner teenage proud of me? She stopped writing when she was a teenager and here I am 30 years later, writing. I’m writing on Substack, in the process of writing 4 books, signed up to write a 5th and am in the process of creating a series. I’ve also been working on my literal voice since 2022 and have published over 700 audios to Reddit and tonight is my 650th podcast episode (Ayla and Potato3s: a nightly message from your best friend). 650 episodes. Wow and I started on July 1, 2024 so you can do the math ;) I also used to have a blog and have over 300 articles saved from that.

One could say that I’m prolific. Me? I’m just doing what I do, creating. Whether that’s in the form of baking, writing, painting, publishing or just being me. Someone who’s simply spectacular in every way and that’s the best kind of list there is. See you next time. :)

ps i love you in case no one told you today