It’s a new year, but I am only a relatively newer me. Since it’s a new year, it feels like it’s time to review this whole project and question if the ‘big goals’ are viable, even if it feels like things haven’t changed much (which is part of the problem). This is the first month of 2023, so it’s time to look back, look forward, and assess. There are some big recurring questions that I feel need revisiting.
Can I ask you one of those questions now, dear reader? This is mostly a semi-rhetorical/introspective question, but I hope you’ll mull it over.
Have you ever really wanted to do something that you felt would be intensely fulfilling/rewarding, but you just can’t seem to get it going?
What stopped you? Or, are you still working towards it? Why is/was it so ‘seemingly fulfilling’ to you? What, to you, makes something difficult to complete worth chasing after?
I’ve spent a few months specifically not talking about this topic. But we’re reviewing the last year, so I think it’s time to crack the lid on these leftovers and give them a sniff.
So, let’s begin. Here’s topic number one under review:
When and how do I “start”?
As usual, I need to drop a caveat here. The caveat is that I am a normal artist, which means I tend to be harsh on myself. Despite the positive remarks I sometimes receive, I am prone to negative self-dialogue. Sometimes this inner-dialogue is actually really helpful, but it’s seldom the whole truth even when it feels like I’ve zeroed-in on something fixable.
For example, I say things like “C’mon dummy, when will you actually sit down and start this?” But I know the word ‘start’ isn’t accurate. Truthfully, I’ve started. I’ve started and I’ve worked really hard on this for a long time. The question “When and how do I start?” is a little bit outdated. What I am actually concerned with today is the material that I can actually show which resembles some kind of polished product.
To me that means the comic itself, not just pages upon pages of notes, sketches and screenplay drafts. Something formatted, drafted, roughed, inked, colored, type-dropped. Something that looks like a lot of love and effort, packaged nicely. So, what is the hurdle that I need to jump over?
Well, I talked about this in last years post from June. There’s actually about 5 hurdles. And, I think there might be more than that.
6/27/2022 — The Five Horsemen of Goal Prevention
Also known as D.E.A.T.H.
Distractions, Energy, Apprehension, Time, Heart. These are the things that I allow to get in my way. I rationalize some pretty crazy things to allow myself to not work on this project. How stupid is that?
The negative self-talk is necessary. Complacency is death. I don’t want to feel hopelessly distracted, insufficient of energy, powerless against apprehension, steamrolled by time, lacking in heart. I hate having to ask myself “Do I actually want this?”. Sometimes I figure that I must not want this bad enough if I’m not putting in the time to actually create the “final product”. Am I biding my time effectively or am I not taking this seriously enough?
This leads me to topic number two:
Nobody should believe me when I say “I’m going to make this thing.”
I can blog once a month for the next 500 years, but it won’t do this project any justice if I’m just chasing my tail with delusions of grandeur. I use this blog to keep the project alive, but it’s only just alive. It’s not really living yet.
I am acutely aware of this. It’s become a bit of a complex.
I’ve long stopped talking to people about Annex:Anima. I commonly refer to it as “the comic”, because in my mind it doesn’t really exist yet. Sharing artistic concepts with people can sometimes be a thrilling and engaging way to converse, but I feel that artists like myself fall into some traps when it comes to discussing creative ideas. The worst of them is what I call “the delusion of affirmation”, though this idea may already exist with a different name.
The delusion is that you may succumb to a form of “creative lethargy” by having engaging conversations about YOUR project. I think I’ve read about this phenomena somewhere before. I know I’ve fallen for it a few times personally. The best way I can describe this, from my experience, is that the engagement and positive response from talking about the project produced some kind of illusion of success in my mind. This illusion feels like I have “something so good on my hands that there’s no way it can fail, so there’s no need for me to hurry”.
Very foolish.
So, if I ever happen to tell someone that “I’m going to make a comic”, I strongly feel like they have zero reason to believe in me. I have a lot of faith in myself as a creative, but even I need to find myself actively inking and coloring drafted panels before I’m willing to admit that I might actually be able to do this.
One could argue this blog is sort of like talking about it. Though, this blog has an ulterior goal. Documentation? That might be the best way to describe this blog? This is discussed in topic number three:
I started this blog early in the process.
This is kind of a tie-in to the “when and how do I start?” question.
Back in August of 2021 I made my first post. This was VERY EARLY in the creative process of this project.
8/26/2021 — This is a Blog About Creating a Comic Called Annex:Anima
help :)
Ironically, the very first line in this introductory blog post is this:
“Where do I start with this? It’s such a mess.”
Sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck in the ‘starting’ phase. As I said way above, I don’t think ‘start’ is the right word, but you get my drift. One thing that has been an improvement since that first blog is actually the second little sentence in that line; “It’s such a mess”.
That’s probably why this doesn’t feel like I’m ‘starting’ anymore. It doesn’t seem like the big mess it used to be. In that first post, I said silly things like “wrap up the script and begin drafting the panels of this comic”, but I’m pretty sure I knew deep down that those things were a long ways out.
I think I wanted it that way? I feel like I intentionally started this blog a little earlier than what would seem… I’m not sure… market savvy? More cohesive? More “content ready”? On paper it seems discouraging to reflect on the last year and three months as unceremonious back-end organization with little true content.
Time will tell if I am able to do this. It always seems to come back to that. What good is reflection if I can’t capitalize on the lessons learned?
Will this be our year, dear reader?
❤ Casey