A lot has happened on my creative journey; drawing is something I have done since before my memories start -- and it isn't anything that I want to quit doing, soon. With this stuff happening with my back, it got kinda scary for a minute and I was scared that I would never be able to sit up and draw again ... and something about being aware of a set timer has made me really stop and think about what I am doing, what I am making. For years, at this point, I have tried to make things according to what I hoped that others would like. If I drew a character and that character seemed to catch a lot of attention, I would draw that charatcer more and more. I did this with characters, with art --- with my comics, everything. I'm not sure when it started, exactly ... but at some point in time I decided that the story I wanted to tell ... wasn't good or cool enough. My art "wasn't ready," and I talked myself out of the things that brought me the most joy.
For 23 years, I floundered around trying to find the sweet spot to make everyone happy ... and while I think I may have found the answer, in the end? I wasn't happy. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I have been extremely miserable. Day in, day out. I have fought to be productive rather than creative. Everything I was doing needed to be marketable. It needed to be a method of making money ... but ... here I am, broke in more ways than one. And what do I have to really show for it? I'm ... not sure.
But something amazing happened in the past week or so.
I stopped caring.
I'm done trying to make things for other people. I'm done trying to be easily digestible or kid-friendly or whatever. When I was a lot younger, I came up with a story and now, 23 years later, I have picked it back up. The story, the characters, they are all so important to me still. Hell ... I have had Dallas this whole time. His design hasn't even changed a ton.
But I think it's very safe to say that I have changed a ton. Not only with transitioning. Not only with my own mental health journey. My art is different. The way that I create is different. I wanted my art to be "good enough," but when does that happen? When do I finally say "fuck it," and just do what I want? There's no time like right now. Right fucking now. I'm done waiting. I'm done talking myself out of this one. Since the beginning of July I have felt like a completely different person -- I have found some of that old, excited creative energy that I used to have when I was a kid --- back when I would draw something and then excitedly hang it up on my walls.
When and why did this creativity leave me? When did the joy of making things turn into a dread of not succeeding? For so long I thought I wanted fans, I thought I wanted people so excited about what I was making ... but the reality couldn't be farther away from such things. I don't want people to be weird about my characters. I don't want to hear people's opinions about who is shipped with who or why they aren't shipped at all. I want to make something so unapologetically for me --- and if my friends and a few people wanna cheer me on, awesome!! I would be honored if some people still took time to read, watch, look at, and comment on my stuff ... I'm just not going to model my life around whether or not someone else likes my ideas.
I've decided, at 36, that it's time to do what I want.
Hopefully some of you will come along for the ride, and if not? I get it. Go find your cup of tea. I'm not 100% sure why I felt the need to write this? Maybe it has something to do with how I am acknowledging the younger me that has waited 23 fucking years to have his blorbos be relevant again. Maybe I'm putting it in words so if I feel some doubt later on, I can come back. Maybe some medical things lately have me thinking a lot more about my mortality and the time I have left to viably make things. Maybe I'm hoping that someone reading this is struggling on a forked path between what they wanna do and what they think will be successful. I'm here, now, to tell that person: do the thing that actually makes you happy.
I'm so sorry it took me this long to get here.
But I'm happy that I did.
Better late than never, right?
I really hope that's true.
