Especially those trying to cross that fragile invisible threshold between surviving and thriving. The brain is mostly water, and every idea begins as an electrical event moving through that internal ocean. When the water level drops, the signal weakens. Thoughts fragment. The deeper images become harder to reach. You stay on the shoreline of yourself, sensing something vast just out of reach.
It is easy to misread this as lack of talent or discipline. It is easier still to blame the algorithm, the market, the gatekeepers, the endless machinery that seems designed to keep artists tired and compliant. But sometimes the problem is far more biological than political. Sometimes the river inside you is simply running low.
What is your favourite drink?
Clean filtered water, free from the microscopic debris of modern excess, is not glamorous. It does not come in a can with a brand story. It does not promise transformation. It just restores baseline function. The nervous system steadies. The mind clears. Emotional reactivity softens. The body recognises it immediately and gets back to work.
And yet it is not my favourite drink.
My favourite drink is the morning ritual. Coffee blended with MCT oil and butter. It sounds indulgent or maybe disgusting, but it is mechanical. Coffee alone is a spike. Quick lift, quick drop. Add the fats and the architecture changes. MCT oil converts rapidly into ketones, which the brain uses as a clean burning alternative to glucose. Butter slows absorption and provides sustained energy. The result is not jittery urgency but calm alertness. A steady flame instead of a flare.
Creative work depends on this steadiness. Not hype. Not drama. Just the ability to sit inside an idea long enough for it to reveal its deeper structure. The right fuel extends that window. It allows you to paddle rather than thrash.
Hydration still underpins all of it. Without water, even the best coffee ritual becomes hollow stimulation. The river must exist before anything can move across it.
I have been dismantling another habit that quietly drained that river. The soft drink train to hell is seductive. Carbonation, sweetness, instant reward. But it is engineered emptiness. Sugar surges and crashes. Artificial substitutes confuse the body. The nervous system pays interest on every hit.
Kombucha has become a bridge away from that cycle. It carries the fizz but brings life with it. Living cultures that support the gut. Organic acids that sharpen digestion rather than dull it. The gut is not separate from creativity. It feeds directly into mood, focus, resilience. Stabilise one and the other follows.
Carbonated water with apple cider vinegar has joined the rotation as well. It satisfies the sensory craving for bubbles while supporting insulin sensitivity and metabolic balance. It feels like maintenance rather than sabotage.
These choices are not about purity. They are about capacity. Creativity needs clean fuel that fills the cup instead of emptying it. Every drink either raises the waterline or lowers it. Every habit either strengthens the current or erodes it.
This is where – With a Paddle – becomes more than a dream image.
In that piece, a man rides a crocodile through floodwaters as though it were a rowboat. He is not in panic. He is navigating. The crocodile is ancient nervous system energy. Primal. Powerful. Potentially dangerous if ignored, but deeply supportive when understood. The floodwaters are abundance. The overwhelming volume of imagery and subconscious material available when the internal reservoir is full.
Without water there is no flood. Without flood there is no crocodile carrying him anywhere. Only dry ground and limitation.
The shift in my dream journal from pen and ink aesthetics into black and white photographic terrain mirrors this understanding. Pen and ink belongs to the physical realm. It belongs to friction and permanence. It belongs to my uncommon animals and the tactile certainty of handmade work.
The dream journal belongs to mist. To half light. To transmission.
Moving into a monochrome cinematic language makes the collaboration with the machine more honest. It stops pretending to be hand inked and starts behaving like recovered footage from the subconscious. Still frames from a film that was always running beneath awareness. The black and white palette deepens the dream quality. Water becomes luminous. Light feels heavier. The images feel witnessed rather than constructed.
They feel like memory.
And memory is fluid.
When I am properly hydrated, fuelled by clean water, stable fats, living drinks rather than synthetic jolts, the internal flood rises more easily. Dreams are clearer. Recall improves. The boundary between conscious and subconscious thins. The crocodile appears without resistance. It offers its back.
Kids Book Illustrator Andy C Marshall 