Keep on fightin’!
Ah, those were some good birthday shenanigans. I highly recommend the Living Room on St. Vincent Street in Glasgow, for those of you in search of tasty cocktails and awesome atmosphere. Though it’s not required, I do advise dressing up a bit for the occasion: You’ll feel so much more suave and sophisticated. Try the Black Cherry and Vanilla Manhattan!
But anyway, to business, and today’s business concerns dreams. The word dream is very frequently used in day-to-day discussion; I dream of one day doing this, you dream of becoming a that, they have a dream of achieving something else. Somewhat related to my rant the other week about ideas and execution, I assert that dreams themselves are merely nascent goals. Life goals are dreams for which you have set out a reasonable, achievable plan to work towards. Perhaps they change throughout life, and having just turned 25 (mid-twenties, argh), I thought that maybe my goals might have changed.
‘Hell no’, says Creative Me. I haven’t come this far, worked this damn hard just to drop my ambitions back down to ‘earn, eat, multiply, die’. This week, I was on holiday, and instead of chilling out like any sensible person might do, I’ve been prodigiously productive in the illustration of my upcoming graphic novel, Lemon Candies. Oh yeah, it’s been freakin’ tough at times, downright stressful and depressing at others. But I keep a hold of the joy I get when you guys talk to me, when you show your love for the characters I make, when you genuinely enjoy what’s going on. I love it when you ask me questions (and I encourage you to do so!), I love it when you get involved, and I particularly love it when I see somebody reading my comics for the first time and getting hooked! It’s these sensations that drive me to improve and progress, to really fight through the drudgery that is reality. Sure, I need to eat (though I could stand to miss a few meals I’ll admit :P), I need to have somewhere to stay, and that’s why I have to hold down a dayjob. But if I fight hard enough, work hard enough, practice and improve enough, maybe I’ll have a change to ditch that life and start a brand new one: The life I’ve dreamed of, the life I’ve set as my goal.
What drives you to succeed? What do you dream of? What goals and waypoints have you set yourself?
M.
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. Samuel Clemens. (Points if you know who he is, without looking it up)
Do I get half points for vaguely remembering the name from somewhere? I think I’m going to need to use a lifeline… 😛 Good quote, though!
From what I’m told by other creative people (one a comic writer/illustrator at my workplace, the other a poet I met when I changed neighbourhoods), when the muse is singing, you have to listen and make your art happen! Otherwise, you’ll try to force your art and you may create something, but you’ll always suspect it’s actually completely shite. Is that also true of your experiences, Chris?
Oh yeah, absolutely. There’s a quote from one of writer Peter David’s books, which I can never remember verbatim, but it amounts to ‘We do not become writers to get ideas, we become writers because the ideas will not stop coming’. If you don’t respond to the ideas and do something about them, they’ll sit at the back of your mind, nagging you and nagging you, building your frustration at the fact that you haven’t been able to work on them. I suppose perhaps further down the line, when I have a family (although funnily enough thanks to my creative endeavours it’s still firmly in the IF I have a family area at the moment), my life goals might change. But you’re right; I’m young, I have the drive, determination and more importantly the discipline to do something about it, so this is the prime time for me to develop my art. Heck, most of the big creators out there didn’t see much attention until they were at least in their 30s. This is the time for buckling down, building up a body of work and developing one’s skills!
That may have come out as a bit of a ramble, but in essence, yes, this is my experience 😛 Particularly with novel-writing: I struggle to sit down and write from time to time, and I definitely feel like I’m forcing it some days. It’s easier for me to do comics, I’m not sure why.
Ending on montage!!! 🙂
Has this arc been a bit slow compared to usual?
Just checked and it started in november, and 95% of it covered about 2 days of activity…
I was about to comment on how it’s actually longer than the other arcs, then I got your point. Yeah, it covers a much smaller period of time than the other arcs, but it didn’t need to cover a long period of time. I think really, Ixnay should’ve spent more time planning her attack on the castle, but she’s a little hotheaded and is used to working on her own.
Next arc will cover abouuuut… Space of one week, if memory serves, and is set a few months after this one. Basically, time in the Elf Blood universe IN GENERAL matches real time. So Mara was definitely born in 96, Fliss in 95, Mint in 94, Lita in 91 etc. Although in Miscalculation, Mara is 15, due to it starting in 2011. Next arc, she will be 16, Fliss will be 17 etc. I usually try and put in some sort of frame of reference to their ages to show that the overall timeline matches up with ours.