Hungover from coffee...
Not really, although that java I drank yesterday really destroyed my sense of time and shattered any "rhythm" I had going in my life. As such, it feels like there's a day that went by without me drawing in my sketchbook.
On the upside, I have a stack of 15 comic pages newly written, in varying stages between script and thumbnail. It's going to be a large experimental project for the duration of 2008 (well, really, from now till the end of 2008), and I'm still rather insecure about it.
There are large disconnects between what I feel is the normal process of creating and what I am doing. I feel that what I am doing doesn't make any sense, and I have trouble explaining (to people that matter to me) why my plans are logical and okay.
And on top of that communication difficulty, I'm concerned about the story being good. It's a situation of paradoxes.
A new comparison I just thought of is that it's like NaNoWriMo, where the goal is to produce 50,000 words of a novel draft in 30 days. Quality, to a certain degree, takes a back seat to accomplishment. My purpose is similar. I want to create and push myself on this project for the sake of accomplishment and progress in my craft. I'm not doing it for love, money, a publishing deal, fame, or Art.
In 2008, I will create my first graphic novel.
Over the next four months I will plot and script and thumbnail. In the next four months I will draft a schedule for posting pages during the coming year. And I will stick to that schedule.
At the end of 2008, I will pump my fist in the air, proclaim "I have done it!", and a world of possibilities will open up before me.
At the end of 2008 I will know I can tell a story. In 2009 I will work on telling good stories.
posted by annie @ 6:46 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Surely creativity is all about a process that doesn't initially make sense? If it all made sense then it would be all planned and contained and then have no room to grow and develop = creativity.
I am a jeweller and although am quite creative I feel restricted by being too controlled...gotta loosen up a bit. That control is what makes me good as a jeweller but oh how I wish I could loosen up!
Casting into the great unknown is a large part of creativity. I believe that living should even be an act of creativity, no doubt.
Insecurity isn't from not measuring up to others (unless I'm talking about high school friends who have outstripped me in the number of diplomas received since graduation). I'm insecure about measuring up to my own ability and potential.
I have hundreds and hundreds of ideas, but I have chosen to focus on this one for the next 450 some odd days. Sometimes I feel like many of those ideas have greater potential for being deep and compelling, but I've chosen one in particular that will be as dry as a box of Wheaties.
Or were you riffing on my disconnects about the process of creation... between the Should and the Am? The Should is all advice (wisdom?) about marketing and presentation that I'm not following. I am under a self-imposed resistance to selling or promoting myself for another couple years, which is why I'm damning conventional wisdom and common sense about how I should go about "publishing" this project.
I think that if we follow too many 'shoulds' we don't really express our full potential. For me I don't seem to have a choice to settle for what I know is not 'me'. When I create I can't be restricted by rules. It's about following instinct and what I just KNOW to be right inside.
When I live my life I seem to have to choose the path of development and growth even when it is the very hardest option I have in front of me. Not choosing it just for the hell of it but choosing it because I know there is no other path to measuring up to my own ability and Potential.
Hello, Annie--
Pictures and a letter (ah, L'Engle) and a thing that looks like a plan: good to see you again. I suppose you will share a bit of your airy plan as it becomes solid fact....
Did I tell you that I tagged along when my daughter went to the Center for Cartoon Studies this summer? So I noticed quite a bit of graphic-novel dreaming this year.
Hey, Marly.
I did notice the "tag along" in your post, but somehow the exact destination was skimmed over.
CCS sounds like an exciting program, and they drop a lot of good names on their Advisory Board. And !! a friend of mine is on the thesis advisory board. I'll have to ask him about that some time in the future.
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