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?
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