I got my promotion at work! It was unexpected for me, since it’s been so long since my interview and everything. On top of that, I get to stay in my current store for the moment, which is unusual and pretty great. I think I’ll do good as an assistant manager, and I’m very excited about making three times my current pay. I need to repair and then replace my car in the near future, for one. I am worried about how this job and its hours will impact my creative process, but I am currently optimistic that I can adjust to the challenge. I also expect that I’ll be moved somewhere else within the year, so hopefully that aligns with when my lease is up. It’ll be a lot of changes, for sure.
I am making good progress on my zine project. I am close to the end of the second chapter. I am learning a lot from this project, and I’m at a point now where I am feeling the drag. It’s been months since I first started on this, so it’s long past the point where I’m being carried by pure enthusiasm. I have done enough to see what things are working and what things are not working. I have notes on what I’d like to do differently in future projects. But I still have three other chapters to work on, you know? I’m mostly focusing on the faults I can see, and the things I know are faults but can’t define. As I near the end of this chapter, I don’t feel the excitement of, “Well, let’s get it done and on to the next!” because I know I have so much more of this to do. A major lesson I’m learning is that now was not the time to do a multi-chapter project. I want to get it done and get out, and I’ve locked myself into a process which has a timeline headed well into spring.
I don’t want to sound all down about it, because I think it’s coming together as well as it can. Part of my current malaise is that I went through a few pages that I think were particularly weak, and I have some better material, or at least more interesting to draw material, coming up ahead. Deep down — spoilers for this post, I suppose — I feel committed to finishing this out no matter what. My desire to see the end, to see through these characters’ story, has not gone away, and so I will find it in me to keep moving. But admittedly, I keep thinking about stopping. Working this much on one thing is asking for more stamina and commitment than I’ve used in the past, so part of me feels gassed out. I can’t help but look at pages that aren’t as good as I now see they can be and wonder if this is even worth finishing.
On top of all that, I have recently had an idea for a new comic that I’m so incredibly fired up about. I had the idea one night, kept thinking about it all morning, drafting and redrafting dialogue as I worked, and spent the entire afternoon writing out stuff for it. I went twelve hours without eating because I just kept working at it! So now, I’m really excited about this shiny new thing that I have such a clear vision for, and I can’t stop everything else I’m doing to work on it. How unfair is that, right? I want to do it now! It’s the classic creative paradox, where your brain is working on everything except what you’re doing. Adding this new fervent desire on top of my malaise, and it starts to feel really tempting to cut off my current project for a new one.
Ultimately, though, I’m not going to do that. A dramatic part of me feels that if I don’t finish this project, I won’t finish anything. Nothing says that’s true, but it does feel disrespectful to how much work I’ve done already and the promised ending I gave myself if I don’t see it through. All the other books I’ve made will weep, all the books I haven’t made will scowl. I knew going in what this would be like, after all. I wanted to take on the challenge of a long series, so I could see what that process was like. Find lessons I could apply to other long form projects, because I have ideas that will take longer to fulfill. Backing out doesn’t feel like an option, which is to say I don’t want to back out. The desire is still there, I’m just lacking the patience.
And besides, my new idea will have me drawing all kinds of stuff I haven’t drawn before. Like, literal new things, as well as activities and angles and framing and arrangements and stuff that are new to me. I’m thinking about how to apply what I’ve learned so far to this new project, starting with a focus on what I want to draw over what seems like the best mechanical way to communicate the story. I need time to practice and formalize my vision so that I can make it as good as I want it to be. Rushing in now would be such a waste. I’m embracing my high ambitions for the future. It’s just hard not to want to! It’s a whole new exciting thing, top to bottom, and I have such a strong drive to make it happen! It’s so easy to fear that the creative spark will leave you if you don’t act in the moment. But I chose an art form that can’t be made in the moment, so screw me, right?
I have other stuff to do to tide me over. I have design work, practice and study drawing. I’m working on stuff now while I’m still so hot and can give myself a base. I can make illustrations and things for the story to pass the time, if I need or want to. I have often felt afraid to even work on other things while I’m drawing a comic because any distraction could derail me. This is my lesson moment. I can’t avoid what’s already taken hold of me, so instead I’m going to use prep work for the new idea as warm-up before I work on the current project for the day. Maintaining focus and discipline over time is one of those difficult skills that our convenience culture tries to beat out of you. I’m going to overcome that. I can take my time and do a lot of prep work for this new comic while I see through my current project. So much of art is not being able to do all the things you want to do, when you want to or ever, so I have to be able to do this much.
Before I go, I want to have a tangent about what inspired this new idea. I was reading a manga I got called The Demons Are Planning Something Good! by Takuji Kato and Gashigashi. It’s very meh. It’s a comedy book, a niche nerd thing about the behind-the-scenes of the demon forces working on traps for the human heroes storming their castles and dungeons, that pulls a lot from isekai anime and fantasy RPGs. Or at least, it’s supposed to be, though most of the chapters aren’t about developing traps. It’s also not much of a comedy, to me, because there’s little in the way of purposeful jokes. There’s one chapter about a mimic sent in disguise to take down the strongest hero and becomes the hero’s girlfriend without realizing it, and that’s pretty funny. But most of it is just nerd talk about how certain tropes happen a lot. Like, I can’t see the joke in the chapter where two demons describe anime storylines involving a mind controlled person to each other. Often, the “punchline” is that one of the characters is horny, or a sexual thing is forced on a woman. Sleazy fan service type stuff where the expected laughter is discomfort with your own feelings. The first chapter is about making slime that only melts off clothes. By the end, not only is the punchline “we get to see her naked when she doesn’t want to be,” but no we don’t, because it’s just one nipple. Not even butt! And that’s the most nipple you get the whole book. Not to pretend this sort of fan service is worthwhile, but what’s the point of a fan service book that doesn’t service fans?
Like, it’s a book made by nerds who are too scared to make porn and too dumb to make comedy, landing in the middle of creep-world. There’s a ton of books like that. It’s a whole genre that I don’t fully understand because both porn and niche, genre-referential comedy exist and are better at everything these books try to do. There’s even actual sex comedy books (like Asumi-chan Is Interested in Lesbian Brothels!) that do both porn and comedy at once successfully. Turns out, the first key is not writing it from the perspective of a repressed nerd who can’t imagine others wanting them. Every now and then, I’ll read a description of one of these and think it sounds fun before remembering what kind of book it is. But at the end of the day, I am glad I read this one, because I got a lot out of it.
Life in the Gutters 