Tag Archives: inspiration

Dragon Comics 134

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dragon comics 134_edited-2

The moral of the story is: do or do not. There is no try. 

Comic finished 7 hours early! Although I did start this one over a week ago. But considering that I spent 3 days being obsessed with my web traffic and sad about bigotry, I’m plenty pleased. It was super motivating that the Fox suggested he come over for a writing party. It’s a thing he does: a bunch of writers sit around and write. I haven’t been to one in a while. So I had to finish this comic so I could actually write at this writing party. Then the Fox cancelled on me. Fine! I’ll have my own writing party! With hookers and blackjack! Well, maybe not those things. But things that are just as fun but less likely to give you a disease or get you arrested or clean out your bank account.

When you start out in an artistic pursuit, you do it out of joy. And probably for a long time you do it for yourself and it’s completely joyful. And then sooner or later, if you want to do it at a higher level, you’ll show it to someone who is more vested in honesty and craft than loving you. That someone will offer criticism, and you will start to see the imperfections. But if you’re an artist, you keep honing your craft. Maybe you take classes. You keep getting better and better. If you take a lot of classes–perhaps if you become, technically, academically, a “master” of your art–you get the opposite of beginner mind. You approach everything critically. You accept nothing with joy. You’re 100 times better than you were when you started, maybe 1000 times. But you can only see the flaws.

That happened. I thought about this book I wanted to write for more than 6 months. Close to a year, I guess. And I got really worked up about it. And I put all these conditions on myself, and finally I allowed it to start. And I wrote a pretty pleasing prologue. And then I said, OK, where does this story start? And I started it with the main character getting off an airplane to start his new life and meeting some characters who would figure prominently in the first part of the story.

But then master mind kicked in. No, no, no. That’s prosaic. This meeting has nothing to do with the story; these characters are of minor importance. The story starts with something important to the story, with major symbols and recurrent themes and a focus on tone. Meaning I wrote an entire chapter I will now throw out. Not an auspicious beginning. But possibly better than writing for a year and then having someone better tell you, “No, no, no, that’s prosaic and doesn’t advance the narrative.” Actually, I know what I’m doing.

The point of this comic, though, is that none of that matters. What matters is that you sit down and do the thing. And then you do it again and again and again until the thing is done.

His Song Went on Forever

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bowie_edited-1

I’m not that deep. I’ll never be that deep. But I can see into the depths. 

I don’t usually do stuff like this, not being one for idols, but David Bowie was such an phenomenal creative spirit that it’s hard to imagine the hearing, seeing human being who wouldn’t be inspired by his work. He was a true artist in every sense of the word, a man who wrote what still stands, in my mind, as one of the greatest commentaries ever created on love, aliens, and rock and roll (let alone one of the greatest albums of all time) when he was 24 year old, and then, rather of resting on his laurels, invented himself again and again, for every album, for every movie role.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars played in the background as I drew this comic, and while I’ve listened to this album start to finish literally hundreds of times in my life, I kept hearing new ideas, new notes. It kept offering new inspiration.

I can’t even talk about “Lazarus” right now.

If you notice that I have chosen the silhouette of Jareth, the Goblin King to represent the dozens of faces that Bowie wore in his career, it is because I am 9 years old, and because when we fall in love, we always remember the moment, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love The Hunger or The Man Who Fell to Earth, brutal and adult as both those films were.  

This is sort of what I feel about any really great artist finishing their work here: it’s sad they had to go when they did, but it’s wonderful that they got to stay as long as they could. The world is a better place for the existence of people like David Bowie and Robin Williams, and I’m a better artist for having walked in their light.

Be Grateful for What You Have

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Happiness is a choice.

Happiness is a choice.

Somehow it can be easier to feel jealousy about what other people have and frustration over what you don’t have than to rejoice in what you do have. Yet, the more you feel gratitude for any benefits to your circumstances, the more you realize how much you have to be grateful for. Allow yourself to see the bright side and there always will be a bright side.

I’m guilty of obsessing over shortcomings and imperfections in life, when really, I have a lot. Like, for instance, I don’t have to sit in a kiddie pool in the summertime. I have many friends and loved ones, a safe place to live, and so much food that I am more in danger making myself sick by overeating than ever suffering from hunger. When you start thinking about what you do have, every advantage is something to give thanks for.

Dragon Comics 81

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Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I'm wistening fow the voice of inspiwation.

Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I’m wistening cwosewy fow the sweet sweet voice of inspiwation.

 

When we were kids, my brother was considered something of a math prodigy. He skipped the 9th grade to attend the Illinois Math and Science Academy and taught at the University of Illinois before he even finished his BA. While he was in college, he told me, laughingly, Paul Erdős’s statement about mathematicians being machines that turn coffee into theorems.

My brother went on to earn advanced degrees from some of the most prestigious schools in the world. On a recent visit, I mentioned that quote to him and he laughed, this time a little bitterly. He said that most mathematicians do their best work before they’re 25, and that if you haven’t had any brilliant and original thoughts in the field before 30, you’re not likely to, ever. It’s like your brain has lost same particular aspect of plasticity that allows it to uncover new truths about numbers.

That’s never been so of writers. It’s the rare author who has both a mastery of craft as well as an interesting story to tell before 30. Maybe authors don’t hit their stride until 40. It’s not at all unusual to come across an extremely talented person who didn’t even start writing until they had retired in their 60s. So age is actually an asset in this field. And I keep telling myself that. It’s not only the facility with words and the understanding of how to structure sentences, chapters, paragraphs, and stories. It’s also the vast increase in life experience: fodder to create stories. And this increases exponentially. I don’t only gain the experience of my own life. I also get the experiences of all the people I talk to, and all the characters in books I read and videos I watch.

There’s absolutely no reason for a person to feel as if they haven’t achieved enough. In the creative arts, your masterwork can still be in the future.

 

Dragon Comics 79

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And they'll do it, too.

And they’ll do it, too.

Today was the Girl’s 10th birthday, so here’s a special bonus design to celebrate: it’s her as a My Little Pony. Usually I don’t do fan art, of course, but she really liked it. She asked if we could get it framed 🙂

My Little Pony: Birthdays Are Magic

My Little Pony: Birthdays Are Magic

The Girl in the comic is supposed to be about 5 years old. The first thing the real life girl said to me this morning was, “I’m really a tween now.” So this picture is a more accurate spiritual representation of who she is now: an optimistic young person with a sense of style and passion, poised to take the world by storm.

As for the comic, it’s just a small gag, but I think it speaks to a lot of people I know, not just the Fox and the Rabbit. Sometimes you’re just waiting for inspiration. But really, inspiration is always in you.

Dragon Comics 78

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In reality, the Girl's reaction to being swarmed with butterflies would not be quite so favorable, and would definitely involve a lot more shrieking

In reality, the Girl’s reaction to being swarmed with butterflies would not be quite so favorable, and would definitely involve a lot more shrieking.

This was originally meant to be a comic about The Man, but I wanted him to write his own dialog and he fell asleep instead. Ergo: the kids.

When we were little, my mother taught us that boredom was our own fault. If we were incapable of using our brains to entertain ourselves, then that represented a sort of intellectual laziness. I had a sister and a brother, and we played together, but I also spent a lot of time alone, with my own head, which was, and continues to be, a magical place. Sometimes I still went and whined to my mother about not having anything to do, but since her response was usually along the lines of, “If you’re bored, go clean your room,” I learned not to ask her for entertainment advice. We read a lot, did puzzles and art projects, went to the park or bike riding, and made up our own games, constantly. TV was pretty limited–we didn’t have cable for the most part, and even when we did, there wasn’t that much programming for kids anyway, and even if there had been, our mother wouldn’t have let us sit in front of it all day long–so we used our imaginations.

I do worry what effect on-demand video technology has on kids. I see too many of them who are utterly incapable of filling in their own minds without a screen. Even with the ubiquitous screens, they’re still bored all the time. I mean, I like the Internet as much as the next person, possibly more, but I can also think of a million fun things to do without it. It’s a great tool; it’s a great friend. But it’s not everything.

It’s funny how when you put people–kids and adults–outside, out of reach of wifi, their whole outlook can change.

Dragon Comics 77

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Be careful what you wish for

Be careful what you wish for

Today was a rough one for me; I had to report for jury duty at 7:30 a.m. and that sort of thing always throws me off course in a thousand ways. But inspiration came nonetheless. You just have to force yourself to open to it. Although I believe in participatory democracy and the right to a trial by a jury of ones peers, the actual process of serving the legal system in this way is oppressive. Getting up early, going through a metal detector, being forced to sit in a room full of strangers waiting for your number to be called, getting questioned by strangers and forced to conform to their mode of speech and behavior, listening to a nonstop stream of dialog inside a windowless room for 7 hours a day, having this all supersede whatever it is that you’ve chosen to do with your life. Plus, the judge cracked a misogynistic joke and made fun of a potential juror’s accent.

Basically, I didn’t want to do it, and when I was excused it felt as if I myself had been released from a kind of prison. The trial was going to be a minimum of 3 weeks! Ain’t nobody got time for that. I was planning of forcing myself to open to the possibility of jury duty. But it was just too much, and instead I was born anew into the early spring sunlight and opened myself to joy and inspiration and found this comic.

Dragon Comics 63

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Don't enjoy the sound of silence.

Don’t enjoy the sound of silence.

A long time ago, a lot of years ago, I visited a Mayan shaman. I had been the victim of a violent crime and sought treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and my therapist suggested I see this practitioner, who was a colleague of hers, for some more traditional healing.

This shaman presented an intriguing mix of esoteric wisdom and childlike wonder. Before I even opened my mouth upon meeting him, he diagnosed me with an unrelated medical condition, which he then proceeded to fix. I’m not even making this up. I came to him for psychological help and somehow he intuitively knew about this other issue, and after the session, I did not have this problem anymore.

At the same time, his treatment method involved copious quantities of tequila, some of which he ingested himself, and after our session, we fell to to talking, in the process of which he locked himself out of the house. Then he passed out on the porch.

I relate this part of the story to highlight that place where brilliance and innocence overlap, where what can be great and astonishing can, at the same time, be small and ordinary. This guy was a metaphor for everything real in the world.

We also took a spirit journey together, or, more accurately, he took a spirit journey and I sort of followed along. There were 4 main points of interest along the way, 2 of which made immediate sense to me, and 2 of which took many years to resonate into clarity. In fact, 1 of them really only started to take on meaning as I began writing this blog post. But the other one (and yes, here comes the point) regarded the butterfly, a symbol of transformation, but also a symbol of inspiration.

Why does it mean to follow the butterfly, I wondered. It is to pursue that which is beautiful, but also elusive, but also metamorphic, meaning that the butterfly can initiate change. While slow human eyes might see a caterpillar as a separate creature, apart from the dazzling winged creature it will become, they are one and the same. The caterpillar is the butterfly; the butterfly is the caterpillar. The caterpillar may be an ugly little creature chomping all the leaves off your citrus trees one day, but after a brief period of transition, it’s a flying jewel. Everything is transitional, and everything has the potential for great harm, or great good.

The tao of art isn’t some kind of garden party; it’s a trek through the jungle. Your guide is this ephemeral, elusive wisp: a butterfly, a muse, a feeling. An interior faith that an invisible compass points true; that the exterior magnetic compulsion is trustworthy.

For me, this is the way of the butterfly. There’s the belief that the butterfly exists, that it is a real thing even though you can’t capture or contain it, and there’s the belief that the butterfly represents what you feel it should represent. In other words, there are 2 voices: the snake says “stop,” the butterfly says “go.” The snake crushes; the butterfly expands. The snake prevents; the butterfly compels. The artist has to own these creatures, and decide which one to privilege. One most likely yells rude epithets constantly, but most often when it’s likely to trip you up. The other whispers all the truths and secrets you long to hear, but only when you are listening.

Reaching: A Bulletin Board

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If you haven’t read Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, I highly recommend it. In brief, Hadfield is a well-known astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency who has completed 3 tours of duty on the International Space Station and mulitple spacewalks, much to his delight. He may be best known for recording the first music video in space. Hadfield is a highly motivationed thinker; on the surface, the book is a memoir about his life, why and how he became an astronaut. However, as the title suggests, it’s really a guidebook for life.

Paper vines emerge

Paper vines emerge

In short, Hadfield’s story is this: in 1969, like millions of kids, he watched Neil Armstrong take a stroll across the surface of the moon, and instantly, like millions of kids, his heart’s compass swung toward space. Unlike millions of kids, Hadfield kept his life pointed to his true north, and this is where his story diverges from everyone else’s. From the age of 9, he decided to live his life as if he would become an astronaut. At no point did he expect he would ever actually go to space–Canada didn’t even have a space agency until 1990–but that didn’t change his resolve to be prepare for the possibility, just in case. He writes that, from that day on, whenever presented with a choice as small as salad or potato chips, he asked himself, “What would an astronaut choose?”

Ascend, every day.

Ascend, every day.

Most of us lack the discipline to become astronauts. Perhaps our grades aren’t good enough, or we’re not physically fit, or our individuality precludes any sort of military training. The important part of Hadfield’s story isn’t: make these choices and you’ll get what you want. He repeats the message that he never honestly thought he would ever go to space; he just decided to be prepared if the question ever came up, and even if he hadn’t gone to space, all the things he did to move his life in that direction would have paid off in other ways. He tells another story, which involves a partnership between NASA and a music festival. Hadfield, thinking ahead as was his wont, determined that it was possible that he might meet Elton John, and if he did meet Elton John, Elton John might be aware that he, Hadfield, was a musician as well as an astronaut, and if Elton John knew that, he might ask Hadfield to jam with him, and if Elton John did ask Hadfield to jam with him, the song he would be most likely to suggest they play would be “Rocket Man.” So Hadfield prepared for possibly meeting Elton John by learning to play “Rocket Man” on the guitar. In the end, he did meet Elton John, but was not asked to jam, but that doesn’t change the fact that he learned to play a new song.

it’s a good message for elementary kids, which is why I chose it for my New Year’s bulletin board, but that doesn’t mean that adults of any age can’t or shouldn’t move their lives in the direction of their hearts.

Dragon Comics 54

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And we’re back! In retrospect, I guess I meant to come back on Monday, but for some reason I thought I had planned to pick up on Wednesday, so here we are.

When the muse sings, you better shut up and listen.

When the muse sings, you better shut up and listen.

My intention was to draw 5 or 6 comics over my break, but of course, I got sick on Christmas Eve and lost most of that week. At least there are 4 finished. Comic back to the comic after take a week off was sort of surreal. It was necessary to remind myself that yes, I can do this.

Inspiration for short fiction sort of comes at your head all the time. I probably write 2 dozens stories in my mind every week. None of them get written down, or even remembered, most of the time, but stories are everywhere. There are characters; there are situations. With the comic, the characters and situations are, by my own parameters, basically the same, but there have to be a million ways to get to the punchline, even if we always start in more or less the same place.

Pebber nodder is a kind of delicious Danish spice cookie, sort of along the lines of gingerbread, but usually smaller than cookies we eat in America (at least in my experience; I am not an expert on Danish desserts) and typically served (I believe) for Christmas. The real life owl is of Danish extraction, but I don’t know her feelings on pebber nodder. We did not eat cookies in the desert over the holiday, although I have hung out in the desert with the owl, without cookies.

The owl, the fox, and the rabbit are my real life writing group, and we do like to go away together to write in a new place. It’s a good form of inspiration, but of course you can’t depend on retreat for inspiration. You have to be able to create in your natural habitat as well.