Over the past 10 years I've done a great deal of drawing, but I've also done a great deal of writing. "How much writing?" you might ask. Well...
The file that I use to hold my writing contains 934 files split into 236 folders, and this was all accumulated over a period of about 3 years.
Granted, not all of these are chapters of a story. Some are outlines, a few are just web designs made to paste the stories onto after completion. Even with these removed, certainly not all of the stories are finished, but still, it sums up to a very large amount of writing, with an obvious increase in quality with time.
Having written so much, I am no stranger to artists block. As I am so well acquainted I feel that it would be a good idea to dispel a longstanding rumor about artist's block.
Artists block is not lack of ideas. Artists of any kind will always have some sort of idea floating around their skulls. Artist's block instead describes a lack of ideas that we count as being good or original. It is for this reason why many claim that artist's block does not exist.
All that being said, I'm stuck. I've been stuck for about a week now. Since I'm here, I figure it's a good opportunity to go into deeper depths about artist's block by explaining this particular journey.
Lets start here.
A few months ago I started tossing around an idea about a somewhat brutal superhero manga. I drew my inspirations from a few seinen (stories aimed at men above the age of 18, typically action based) that I had been reading and watching recently.
As I worked on the basic plot and setting, I thought about the problem that I see many times concerning motivations in many of the stories I read. Particularly, I remembered many cases in which villains were villains "just because", and lacked any truly interesting motivation, and therefore were unable to relate to the audience.
In trying to fix this issue, I decided to tell the story primarily from the villains point of view. I also though it would be useful to blur the lines of morality as much as possible in order to prevent myself from giving a too biased focus to either side.
As I continued to write, I looked over my characters and was disappointed to find that my main characters had a critical flaw - they were completely uninteresting. Since I have already completed writing 20 chapters of the story, I had to try to figure out a method for re-writing their character traits without changing critical points of the plot or creating momentary lapses in established characterization. Eventually, I decided that I would have to rewrite.
Before rewriting I decided that it would be a good idea to play around with a few other ideas that might fit well into the plot or help to clear up any future discontinuity. Unfortunately, during this process I lost track and ended up floating in limbo among a mass of ideas, none of which I was interested in. And thus, the artist's block begins.
So what can you do to get rid of artist's block? I suggest you push through it. You never know what you'll find on the other side of the tunnel, but its better than sitting around, so keep digging. Keep thinking about it and trying to write it out and you just may find the solution that you're looking for. A bit a good music can help as well. I can't count the number of times that a lyric has helped me to figure out where to go in a story.
As for this particular case of artists block, it just ended. I decided to reread some old work and found a wonderful place to fit in all of this new material. And so the process continues, taking an idea that was once unappreciated and incorporating it into something a bit more useful and fun.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Thanksgiving?
As the weekend ends, lets reflect on the meaning of this passed holiday. Or at least the supposed meaning.
Thanksgiving. We all learned in grade school that it was a day to be together with family and friends, and to be give thanks for all of the graces in life. In high school it's a time when you can sit down together with all the relative you hate and reflect on all the little things that you never have time to consider. In college its a time to pig out and get sick over a game of football. When you're an adult, its a time to pig out, get sick, AND get drunk (key difference) over a game of football.
That being said, these are all good things, and Thanksgiving is something that we should cherish. It is an occasion that should be used effectively. And it should be used effectively by everyone.
The bit that becomes an issue is the everyone.
Before leaving for Thanksgiving I had a good conversation with a few working friends. During this conversation the topic of Black Friday Shopping came up. It was through this discourse that I discovered that very many of my friends would be working, not only on Black Friday, but also on the Thanksgiving holiday.
Of course I was a bit confused as to why they would want to work on Thanksgiving. I quickly became even more upset as I discovered that my classmates were, by and large, not working because they wanted to, but because they were required to.
This obviously isn't the first time that I've heard of people working on Thanksgiving. That being said, regardless of how many times I hear it, I am never any less angry.
I suppose that the bit about situations such as these that upsets me the most is the fact that as the years have passed, more and more employers have forced their employees to work on Thanksgiving in the name of profit. The cases that get me into a particularly hot steam are those in which mega-corporations, the likes of WalMart and BestBuy, who do not need the extra money that Thanksgiving sales provide, force their workers to turn in, even as those higher level managers who demanded their attendance go and enjoy the holiday.
I understand how the business oriented mind works. I understand why its methods make sense and how they come to their conclusions. Regardless, I still hate the less human portions of the business mind. I hate how people could think it completely fine to force their workers to come into work on a holiday when they themselves never would. I understand that a boss has certain privileges that cannot hold, but when the leaders of a company that is not in danger of meeting its bottom line decides that it is perfectly fine for his employees to be required to work on a day that is traditionally reserved for giving thanks with family and friends, those workers likely won't be feeling very thankful about being on a force extra shift to cater to people who have already (or will at least have a chance to) celebrate.
As we reflect on yet another Thanksgiving newscast showcasing the aftermath of yet another year of "Doorbuster Deals" (note: a term that clearly needs to be abandoned as it literally invokes images of shoppers breaking through department store doors and trampling on one another in a race to get to the last pair of Ipod headphones) lets all sit back, employees, employers, and random spectators like myself. Lets sit back and think, "What is the purpose of this holiday, and how should I use this purpose effectively?"
Do that, and I'm sure that our Thanksgiving newscasts would get quite a great deal less violent, and out Black Friday cashiers would a great deal more thankful. And hey, isn't that what the pilgrims and native would have wanted, all those years ago?
I'm sure its in there somewhere, around the time when the pilgrims opened up a Macy's and invited the Natives to shop. That is how this holiday started right?
Thanksgiving. We all learned in grade school that it was a day to be together with family and friends, and to be give thanks for all of the graces in life. In high school it's a time when you can sit down together with all the relative you hate and reflect on all the little things that you never have time to consider. In college its a time to pig out and get sick over a game of football. When you're an adult, its a time to pig out, get sick, AND get drunk (key difference) over a game of football.
That being said, these are all good things, and Thanksgiving is something that we should cherish. It is an occasion that should be used effectively. And it should be used effectively by everyone.
The bit that becomes an issue is the everyone.
Before leaving for Thanksgiving I had a good conversation with a few working friends. During this conversation the topic of Black Friday Shopping came up. It was through this discourse that I discovered that very many of my friends would be working, not only on Black Friday, but also on the Thanksgiving holiday.
Of course I was a bit confused as to why they would want to work on Thanksgiving. I quickly became even more upset as I discovered that my classmates were, by and large, not working because they wanted to, but because they were required to.
This obviously isn't the first time that I've heard of people working on Thanksgiving. That being said, regardless of how many times I hear it, I am never any less angry.
I suppose that the bit about situations such as these that upsets me the most is the fact that as the years have passed, more and more employers have forced their employees to work on Thanksgiving in the name of profit. The cases that get me into a particularly hot steam are those in which mega-corporations, the likes of WalMart and BestBuy, who do not need the extra money that Thanksgiving sales provide, force their workers to turn in, even as those higher level managers who demanded their attendance go and enjoy the holiday.
I understand how the business oriented mind works. I understand why its methods make sense and how they come to their conclusions. Regardless, I still hate the less human portions of the business mind. I hate how people could think it completely fine to force their workers to come into work on a holiday when they themselves never would. I understand that a boss has certain privileges that cannot hold, but when the leaders of a company that is not in danger of meeting its bottom line decides that it is perfectly fine for his employees to be required to work on a day that is traditionally reserved for giving thanks with family and friends, those workers likely won't be feeling very thankful about being on a force extra shift to cater to people who have already (or will at least have a chance to) celebrate.
As we reflect on yet another Thanksgiving newscast showcasing the aftermath of yet another year of "Doorbuster Deals" (note: a term that clearly needs to be abandoned as it literally invokes images of shoppers breaking through department store doors and trampling on one another in a race to get to the last pair of Ipod headphones) lets all sit back, employees, employers, and random spectators like myself. Lets sit back and think, "What is the purpose of this holiday, and how should I use this purpose effectively?"
Do that, and I'm sure that our Thanksgiving newscasts would get quite a great deal less violent, and out Black Friday cashiers would a great deal more thankful. And hey, isn't that what the pilgrims and native would have wanted, all those years ago?
I'm sure its in there somewhere, around the time when the pilgrims opened up a Macy's and invited the Natives to shop. That is how this holiday started right?
Monday, October 13, 2014
Response to "Spread of Technology"
After looking the blog posts of my classmates I found that the post by Zach concerning technological studies was particularly interesting.
In his post, he discusses how science in recent years seems to be less focused on finding solutions to the issues that are plaguing our society today, and instead more interested in fulfilling the dreams of science fiction. He argues that the opposite should be true, and that we should save science-for-enjoyment for after our problems have been solved. I, however, must disagree.
The reason I have to conflict with this view comes down to two things, first of which being that I very much doubt that there will be a time when there is nothing that we as a people feel a great deal of worry about and therefore have a need to dedicate a large amount of scientific effort to. You may call me a pessimist for this, but as history has progressed and the advancement of technology has accelerated, we have yet to see problems disappear without being replaced with new, just as prominent problems.
The second reason for my disagreement is that, as I see it, the progression of science today is simply an accelerated image of how science has progressed in the past. Let me explain.
I am of the belief that scientific study and discovery can be split into three categories.
The first category is the ISSUE category. It describes scientific study that is done to resolve issues that are urgent to society in the corresponding age. Doctors, for example, are as a rule, always included in the urgent category, and due to the horrible conditions of our roads and bridges, civil and traffic engineers are included in the ISSUE category in our present age.
The second is the COOL category. It describes science done to discover something nifty or useful, though not completely useful to the overall society. Sticky notes were a cool discovery. Rubber, was a cool discovery. e = mc^2 even, was a cool discovery.
The biggest difference between an ISSUE discovery and a COOL discovery is that an issue discovery is searched out specifically because it is useful, while on the other hand, a COOL discovery is searched out for the gratification of the curious scientist, and only has a chance of becoming a part of ISSUE science after it's discovery.
Now, I think of the greatest example of a COOL inventor whose inventions have become ISSUES as Thomas Edison. Edison is well known for inventing the bulb and the motion picture camera. Now, when he was working on them, pursuing a career in medicine probably would have been seen as more profitable to society than being an inventor. However, look at the world now. The light bulb is a near necessity in western society, and the motion picture camera served as the basis for newer and better recording devices, which have likewise become necessities of the reporting industry.
We can even look at the communicators from star trek. Communication had been working perfectly fine, but someone said, "Hey, that's convenient, lets spend some time working on that". Today, land-line has by-and-large given way to the cell phones. And sure, a phone can't cure cancer, but what it can do is give you access to a doctor if you are hurt out on the street, and help you look up information for certain symptoms when you think you might be having a health problem, or look up instructions on how to live more actively and safely, or help you to find ways to reach out to others.
What I'm basically trying to say is - don't be too dismissive of these "toys", as they can be quite a bit more useful than you think. The atomic bomb certainly taught Einstein that some toys can come with a bang. After all, who knows when you may need a Lightsaber in the emergency room?
In his post, he discusses how science in recent years seems to be less focused on finding solutions to the issues that are plaguing our society today, and instead more interested in fulfilling the dreams of science fiction. He argues that the opposite should be true, and that we should save science-for-enjoyment for after our problems have been solved. I, however, must disagree.
The reason I have to conflict with this view comes down to two things, first of which being that I very much doubt that there will be a time when there is nothing that we as a people feel a great deal of worry about and therefore have a need to dedicate a large amount of scientific effort to. You may call me a pessimist for this, but as history has progressed and the advancement of technology has accelerated, we have yet to see problems disappear without being replaced with new, just as prominent problems.
The second reason for my disagreement is that, as I see it, the progression of science today is simply an accelerated image of how science has progressed in the past. Let me explain.
I am of the belief that scientific study and discovery can be split into three categories.
The first category is the ISSUE category. It describes scientific study that is done to resolve issues that are urgent to society in the corresponding age. Doctors, for example, are as a rule, always included in the urgent category, and due to the horrible conditions of our roads and bridges, civil and traffic engineers are included in the ISSUE category in our present age.
The second is the COOL category. It describes science done to discover something nifty or useful, though not completely useful to the overall society. Sticky notes were a cool discovery. Rubber, was a cool discovery. e = mc^2 even, was a cool discovery.
The biggest difference between an ISSUE discovery and a COOL discovery is that an issue discovery is searched out specifically because it is useful, while on the other hand, a COOL discovery is searched out for the gratification of the curious scientist, and only has a chance of becoming a part of ISSUE science after it's discovery.
Now, I think of the greatest example of a COOL inventor whose inventions have become ISSUES as Thomas Edison. Edison is well known for inventing the bulb and the motion picture camera. Now, when he was working on them, pursuing a career in medicine probably would have been seen as more profitable to society than being an inventor. However, look at the world now. The light bulb is a near necessity in western society, and the motion picture camera served as the basis for newer and better recording devices, which have likewise become necessities of the reporting industry.
We can even look at the communicators from star trek. Communication had been working perfectly fine, but someone said, "Hey, that's convenient, lets spend some time working on that". Today, land-line has by-and-large given way to the cell phones. And sure, a phone can't cure cancer, but what it can do is give you access to a doctor if you are hurt out on the street, and help you look up information for certain symptoms when you think you might be having a health problem, or look up instructions on how to live more actively and safely, or help you to find ways to reach out to others.
What I'm basically trying to say is - don't be too dismissive of these "toys", as they can be quite a bit more useful than you think. The atomic bomb certainly taught Einstein that some toys can come with a bang. After all, who knows when you may need a Lightsaber in the emergency room?
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Response to "Full Life?"
Connor Hagan has written a very interesting post concerning the nature of a full life. After presenting his argument, his final conclusion was that there was no definite, overreaching definition of a "full life".
I fully agree with this sentiment, and it our inability to create a universal definition for the full life which, in my opinion, makes the idea so great.
As with many things, happiness is a matter of personal perception. We might say that this is due to the complex and individual nature of happiness, but even color, which is considered to be a fairly follow concrete laws, can vary between individuals, with or without eyesight conditions. If something so simple as color does not always have a true definition, then it would be almost impossible that a full life would.
And this is where the spice of life comes in. I don't think it's a good idea to spend time trying to figure out what the definition of a full life is. Instead, I think we should ask what our individual full life looks like. To find that joy that turns each of us into colorblind fools, in my opinion, is a much more worthwhile pursuit.
I fully agree with this sentiment, and it our inability to create a universal definition for the full life which, in my opinion, makes the idea so great.
As with many things, happiness is a matter of personal perception. We might say that this is due to the complex and individual nature of happiness, but even color, which is considered to be a fairly follow concrete laws, can vary between individuals, with or without eyesight conditions. If something so simple as color does not always have a true definition, then it would be almost impossible that a full life would.
And this is where the spice of life comes in. I don't think it's a good idea to spend time trying to figure out what the definition of a full life is. Instead, I think we should ask what our individual full life looks like. To find that joy that turns each of us into colorblind fools, in my opinion, is a much more worthwhile pursuit.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Blog Post 1
Blog Post 1
And my struggle continues.
Today in class we had a discussion about our reading pertaining to the Mad Scientist trope in Doctor Who. It was a quality conversation, very interesting, but there was one comment that I just couldn't shake off. During the discussion, the subject of the anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist came up and at one point it was referred to as a children's show, full of action and not much else. This got me a bit steamed, to say the least.
Now, let me explain. I am not trying to argue that this program does not have a prime demographic of children. In fact, I am fully aware that it falls under the shonen demographic, which is to say that it is specifically made to appeal to boys between the ages of 6 and 17. Where I take my issue is with the dismissive nature of the comment.
I have been a fan of Japanese animation and comic art for a large chunk of my life now, and it's through this fandom that I feel that I've gained a better understanding and appreciation of the power of animation and sequential art over the years. Most importantly, I have learned that animation and comics across the globe can be made for all audiences and can serve a wide variety of purposes, from early-childhood education, to young adult entertainment, to mature intrigue, and to provocation of deep thought.
That being the case, as I've grown more mature and my tastes have changed to accommodate, or at the very least understand and appreciate, the more mature strands of animation and comic storytelling, I've had a constant annoyance with people calling cartoons "childish".
On one particular occasion I remember being scolded by a teacher for reading a graphic novel, with her saying that I needed to "start reading at a higher level" and that "reading graphic novels is childish".
That said, she was correct about that particular book, but she had not so much as flipped through it's pages to confirm her allegation. At the time, I may have been reading Kingdom Hearts when my class reading was Children of the Fire, but what if I had been reading something else? What if I had been reading Death Note, a psychological thriller revolving around the twisted justice of a boy with a notebook that gives him the power to kill of anyone by simply writing in their names. What if it was Seraph of the End, a post-apocalyptic which starts with the protagonist's entire family being killed off? Or D. Gray Man, which is riddled with religious symbolism and is literally based in a world where one of the fundamental stories of the Bible's Old Testament is changed to an extreme? All of these comics classify as shonen. Would all of these be childish as well, simply because they were action comics, or simply because they could appeal to smaller children?
Simply put, I do hope that we can learn to see the importance of comics and animation, because there are some stories that just can't be told effectively through a live action production, and many which would suffer a severe detriment by the application of one. If we can understand more about how to use these tools, hopefully we can expand it past this "childish" look. As one who was so inspired by this craft that I began making comics at an early age and still work to produce one today, I hope to see this wish come true someday.
And my struggle continues.
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