Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaalllllllllsssss

Today is December 31st.

Yesterday was December 30th and I got hit with a major case of Doubtrify. I just made that word up, but I think any creative person gets it and and it hit me hard yesterday. I woke up, and knew that in two days 2015 would be here, and here I was. Still in my little, cold, studio apartment, working at a place I've come to REALLY not like anymore, and wondering to myself: "Man, how much longer can I do this?"

How much longer can I keep sitting at my desk, not knowing if making comics is ever going to pay-off, working in a job I hate, knowing I'm not really qualified to do anything else, and not only is it a new year in two days, but in 13 days, I'll be a year older. I'm really close to being middle aged (which is a scary thought in and of itself) and what do I have to show for it?

I tried going to the movies to take my mind off of things (the new Hobbit movie is pretty cool), but I walked out of the theater, knowing I was headed back to my little studio, not knowing where my life was headed.

I got home and I pondered. Thinking didn't help, and usually doesn't when you're in that state of mind. So I returned to my unfinished comic and started drawing.I finished the last page of a new comic. I've made two brand new, 19 page & 22 page comics this year. That's when it hit me. I'm not doing enough.

I can complain all I want about where I'm at in life and wonder why it's taking me so long and doubting if things are going to pay off, and you know what? They aren't. Not if I go at the rate I went this year. In 2014 I created 43 pages of new comic work. That's it. That's not even a page a week. That's less than a page a week. Sometimes, you need coddling, sometimes you need a good, positive piece of advice, but sometimes... well sometimes you just need a swift kick in the booty!

So what did I do? I looked at a list I made last week. A list of goals I want to complete in 2015 and re-adjusted my thinking. I'm tackling one goal at a time. I'm doubling my efforts. I can't just work when I feel like it, or when I think it's a good time. I have to work all the time. Sometimes, you can't wait for the boat to come closer to shore, you have to swim out and get on the boat yourself. When you do that, you face obstacles. You have waves, and sea creatures, and other people swimming. But the boat is there. You have to swim as hard as you can to make it. Otherwise, there are only two other options for your. If you don't make it to the boat, you either get thrown back to shore or you drown. It is what it is.

Call it a dreamer's mind set, call it naivety, call it whatever you want. But I really believe I can do this. I can make a living making comics. But belief only gets your half way. You have to put in the work, and work hard. Harder than anyone else. Most of the time harder than everyone realizes you're working. But it doesn't matter. Because if you want it, you have to work for it.

This week's quote of the week is...

"There is nothing except this. There's no art opening, no charity, nothing to sign. There's the next mission, and nothing else."- Tony Stark


Having blinders on can sometimes be a bad thing. You have to look outside the window every once in a while, stop and smell the roses, and just precipitate this life. It's healthy and refreshes you. But then there are times when you just have to strap into your seat, hit the throttle, aim for the finish line, and don't let anything stop you.

Tunnel vision is sometimes needed, because if you're like me, you can get excited about a project, but then when the actual time comes around to work on the project you get sidetrack by all the sparkly images on the internet, all the weird tweets on twitter, and all the nonsensical, bad mojo, negativity dwelling in your brain. You have to push it all aside. As Morpheus in The Matrix put it, you have to let it all go. Fear. Doubt. Fear your mind. And in this case, freeing you're mind is actually locking it down in place, ignoring all the other things and Get. The. Job. Done.

Sometimes you just have to focus, otherwise you're never going to accomplish what you want to accomplish and you're always be sitting on your couch, groaning to yourself, "Why, oh why, isn't my comic finished!?" (That's me sometimes)

But really, the answer lies in yourself. It's all about focus. Push yourself. You don't gain muscles by exercising whenever you feel like it, and when you do exercise, just doing the bare minimum. No!! You gain muscles by pushing yourself, adding weights on top of weights, doing more than you did last time, and not stopping till you are where you want to be. 

Whether it's making comics or anything else you want to do (and it doesn't have to be just one thing) you can do it, you just need that drive, and put on a pair of blinders. Block out all the time wasting, albeit fun, stuff for a while, adapt to tunnel vision and, focus on the "next mission". These is nothing else.

Be Awesome.

Last month of 2014 - WHAAAA!?!?

December is here and holy smokes, where did the time go? It seems like it was just Valentine's day yesterday and I was complaining to anyone who would listen about being forever alone... but I digress :P

Anyways, it is December 1st today, and that means we just finished the month of November, which itself means PiBoIdMo has come to a close. How'd I do? I made it!

The month started off great and by the end of the first week, I had I think 15 titles/names jotted down in my sketch book for different ideas. But as the month went by, I filled out those ideas with sketches and the ideas seemed to come slower. Then by the 28th, my well seemed to had run dry.

But then the next day, on the 29th, I was hit with three ideas. So yesterday I sketched out the last one I wrote down and now my new sketch book, purchased specifically for PiBoIdMo, is over halfway full with 32 sketches of different ideas I came up with. My goal is to finish out the rest of the sketch book and have a total of 60 ideas by the end of the year.

As I stated before, when I wrote about Picture Book Idea Month, some of the ideas aren't great. As a matter of fact, they're kinda silly and I don't know if I'll ever develop them very much. But there are a couple I really, really like and I'm going to work on them a little bit more, build up the world around them and see what I get. What I like about them also, is that a couple of them are actual picture book ideas, which is what the month was about. But a couple I think are awesome ideas for a graphic novels. So I'm excited to see where they take me.

Next up, hopefully is 12 x 12, which I've only recently found out about and I'm hoping it happens again next year. It's where you develop twelve rough drafts, one rough draft for each month of the year (I think). If it happens next year, I want to take part in it.

Well that's it for now, just wanted to give a little update. I'm going to try and update this blog a bit more, so we'll see what happens. Thanks for reading.

Be Awesome.