Keeping Irons In The Fire

I have been a 'creative' person my whole life and I have learned an essential truth for making that impulse become the thing that sustains me as both a job and a lens through which the world looks more compelling: Keep making whatever it is you make even when you don't feel like it.

I don't mean so say that I'm ever truly unsatisfied by the process of making things but more suggesting that there will be times when 'the muse' isn't filling my heart with the tempest of raw creative fury and that is OK. I love when I'm feeling a flow of positive inventive force but those moments are uncommon. Imagine someone who works as a donut store clerk treating their job that way and it makes my point more clear: "I'm sorry sir I can't get you the bakers dunkin' dozen because I'm not feeling inspired" Even when I had stupid jobs I hated I still got up and did them. Why would I treat something I love like a Sunday crossword?



I've come to view art making with the same basic rule set that I view even unskilled labor. Just because art is especially fun doesn't mean it needs special rules and, in point of fact, suffers if one only does it under rarified circumstances. The thing that makes it better than other, less interesting, jobs is that when you apply the same yeoman-like schedule to making drawings, writing or practicing and instrument, you will see distinct results that can be applied directly in those moments when you are feeling the charge of a divine battery somewhere in your system.



So I design games, Draw a bi-weekly webcomic, do spot illustrations, sketch friends on receipts, aim for big solo projects, draw samples of my favorite characters and work with friends on submissions for publication. I do whatever I can to give myself deadlines and keep my pencil moving across that page.

That pep talk was as much for me as it was for the 6 people who read this blog but I hope it was helpful to you too. I'm going to go draw now.