Technique is a bit of a vice for me.

When in doubt, I draw boxes.

When in doubt, I play scales.

When in doubt, I mess around with a toy app in software.

It's my vice because I'm guilty of probably practicing too much technique and not just making things more often. But there it is. It's my "comfort work" as Austin Kleon puts it.

To each their own. It gets me in the studio, in front of the piano, and in my code editor. Usually, that's where I need to start to get to the really good stuff, anyway.

I'm at least in good company. In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard shares an interaction between a fellow authorand a student where the student asks "Do you think I could be a writer?" Their response:

"Do you like sentences?"

I like sound and lines. I even like the colored text in VS Code! So I'll take it as a sign that I'm in all the right crafts.