i can quit any time (i won't)
I'm currently writing this post as a break from working on the comic I have due at the end of the month. It's an eighteen-page oneshot and my very first contribution to an anthology, which is honestly very exciting. Intimidating, too, which is why I ended up putting off most of the work until the last minute.
Working on it has, as I anticipated, brought to light a number of my artistic weaknesses: I don't like inking, I half-ass shapes I don't understand rather than look for a reference, my faces are inconsistent... the list goes on. Seeing all the ways I fall short of my expectations is what I was afraid of happening, why I put it off for so long – but I don't really have the time anymore to sit and nitpick at my work, which is kind of a blessing. Stuff is getting done!
It's frustrating to want to create, to know what good art and good writing look like and see that your work is far from it. I always think about that Ira Glass quote:
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.
A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?
I have to periodically remind myself that done is better than perfect, and that however shitty this comic turns out, I'll be able to make another, perhaps better one after I finish it. I've never been particularly motivated by sentiments like "you'll get it next time," but it's annoying and true enough that I roll my eyes and pick up the pen again.
Still, I like to try and find other ways to light a fire under my ass. My most recent method is telling myself I could quit anytime, and for some reason that gets me. The painful and frustrating experience of making art is nothing compared to the painful and frustrating experience of not making art. If I never drew again, never told any stories, never tried, would I die? Probably not, but what a miserable life.