Are we meant to capture inspiration? To share with others the things that have illuminated our paths? 

Well, that seems like a rhetorical question but it’s a question we easily dismiss once greeted with obstacles. And who can blame us? Magic is beautiful because we don’t understand it. And once we do it diminishes the wonder because now you’re tasked with a responsibility. 

For example, who is Santa Claus? You and I are Santa Claus. The minute we learned that we realize that a new financial responsibility has entered our lives. The action of giving and receiving is beautiful but leading up to that transaction is pure work.

The same goes for capturing inspiration and performing as an artist. Many may marvel at your work but first, you need to accept the task of chiseling a statue out of marble. 

So what do you need to do to get in the right frame of mind? Honestly, I struggle with this every day but here are the things that keep me on my path.

Acknowledgment

You are not perfect. You weren’t meant to be perfect and nobody expects you to be perfect. That is an idea that you will ignore for the rest of your life. And I don’t expect you to adopt this way of thinking. Hey if you don’t strive for perfection then you’ll never create your best work. What I mean by acknowledgment is accepting that your life will always be a battle. Because you have accepted an unachievable task. So don’t waste time trying to find a way out. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Rest

If you’re an artist you’re a sensitive soul. You cry during heartwarming commercials and you’ll always be upset with the state of humanity. Since people are the worst. That being said you need to take breaks. Sleep and having affairs with other art forms are needed to keep you fueled. Without it, you’ll cripple under the weight of your decisions. Leading you to complete paralyzation, one where there’s no point of return.  This is not burnout this is worse. You’ll be questioning your existence and your art form. The holiest of divine energies and it’ll hate you for it. It could lead you to give up and abandon your love. Something that happens to the majority of us.

Move baby

Any step forward is a step forward. Sure it’s great to have this whole strategy created but it really doesn’t add value to your art. Thinking about how and when you’ll perform within your art form is utter bullshit unless you work at your craft.  Sure it’s nice to think about but planning is separate. When you’re planning that’s all you’re doing. Don’t confuse it with the task at hand. I can’t say this enough!

Be kind Rewind

If you grow exhausted. You lose all hope in your destiny. And the last thing you want to do is see yourself in your art, then I say someone has been a little tough on themselves. Remember you’re allowed to take breaks. If you need to step away and refill your well, that doesn’t make you the worse human in the world. Remember to celebrate your small wins. Anything you complete is an accomplished task. Enjoy and savor those moments. Working on your craft doesn’t have to be a masochist act. Remember overall you’re human. Creating costs pieces of yourself. Pieces that are not measurable. Pieces that exist and deserve their moments of grieving, pleasure, and courage.

In Conclusion

Overall inspiration and art are scary things because we don’t fully understand their origins. It’s a magical act and you need to be brave to prosper. So carry on soldier and don’t stop till you get enough.

Our life is in each choice that we make. Is this a fact that empowers you or overwhelms you? It tends to overwhelm me as someone who has always struggled to get by. Accepting what they could. The power can be both life-affirming and catastrophic.

But forget personal lives. Let’s look at how your choices affect your art. Because ultimately artists are freed to live as. many lives as they’d like within their mediums.

Where there’s a choice to be made

When it comes to writing a book the first choice to make is what genre your book belongs to. But if you’re someone like me. Someone who has never written something to share. You completely skip this step. And that’s precisely what I’ve done and I discourage you to follow in my footsteps. I was led by the visions and ideas that have been harassing me for years. Giving the story a relentless amount of freedom. But freedom without structure or form is just chaos. So now it’s time to get back to the writing stages.

I wrote something and I sent it to my editor. My number one piece of feedback was to choose what my final format will be. Is my book a novella, short story, comic book, or graphic novel? Then is it magical realism or science fiction or something else? My immediate reaction was… I thought the book would figure it out for itself. Maybe because it was my first time trying to be disciplined within this art form I focused on the wrong things. Hoping that these questions would realize themselves. Well, I was wrong.

I had no idea where to start, trying not to feel paralyzed by this Sophie choice moment. As a naive writer, I feel like any choice would kill off what could be the most successful version of my story. So the first thing I decided to do was step away. I need a moment to forget what just happened. Being asked to make a choice is not an attack it’s a door waiting to be open. And don’t get me wrong I did not feel attacked by my editor’s feedback. On the contrary, it makes me trust them that much more because they’ve asked me to reveal more parts of my story and in turn myself. But like any first date I need to walk around the block and gather my confidence. 

Making the first choice

Once I was ready to take a step back into my book the first thing I did was chat with a trusted friend. That one friend who read everything and would be able to listen and not impose their opinions on me. It’s very difficult to find a friend like this. People are so eager to tell you what you’ve done wrong when you’re trying to figure things out for yourself.

So we got together I told her everything. She asked me what I thought my book should be. I said a novella would be a lot of work but easier than all the illustrations I would have to make. But my story came from pictures so it should be a graphic novel. I just want to be lazy and not think of two things I have to do: write a story, and draw a story. Her response was yes I feel the same it’s a graphic novel.

Where does that leave me? Confronting my imposter syndrome. The book needs to be done and I have to figure it out and go for it.

Second Choice

Ok, a decision has been made. Now the question is how do I bring this story back into my life? Since I submitted the book to my editor, I’ve drafted and started writing a new story. Isn’t that funny? I went from I just need to get this story over with so I can continue my life to ok let’s start writing this next story. And to be honest I still don’t see myself as wanting or needing to be an author or illustrator. I genuinely just need to get this story told and I’m trying to figure out the best way to do that.

So here’s where the second choice needs to be made – what will my life look like now? Recently I’ve been only writing on the weekends. My job takes a lot out of me and in my free time, I like to give up on life and pursue anything of interest just so I can feel bad for myself and the things I put myself through. Wow, that is not empowering or motivating at all. But it’s the truth. Day jobs drain you and trying to build something for yourself in your free time takes some herculean energy.

Even this blog the number of times I’ve wanted to quit it – I’ve lost count. I didn’t even want to write this but I thought this is a muscle. A writing muscle. A promise I made to myself. To write one new blog post a week and I haven’t stopped since the beginning of the year. Sure topics have changed but I haven’t stopped. So it’s time to become disciplined about my priorities again.

Third Choice

Now that I’ve decided not to give up on myself and to prioritize my time and energy again it’s time that I start managing my time. My days look like this: wake up, do yoga, get ready for work, work, come home, have dinner, walk the dog, and get ready for bed. Now I need to start adding pockets of time again where I will spend dedicated time on my blog, my book, and my fitness.

I hate to say it but it’s true. Working out gives you the energy you need to make it through the day. So although I’ll be adding more to my plate, my plate only gets bigger if I factor everything in.

Fourth Choice

Once it’s time to sit down and write or draw, where do I begin? One thing I honestly haven’t done yet is read through the manuscript with all of the notes. I’ve honestly been kind of scared too. But I promise I’ll do it today. Then it’s time to re-outline everything. Not just the story but the story and the storyboard of the art.

I need to make sure all the notes I received make sense to me and I need a plan of action on how to tackle them. That plan would most likely look like a to-do list that I get to as I reach different portions of my stories.

Fifth Choice

Ok, I know exactly what to do, so what’s the next choice? Giving myself a deadline. When do I want all of this outlining and rewriting to be done? This is important because I need to schedule my next editing service ahead of time. That will most likely be another manuscript critique but I’ll know for sure once I’ve read through the manuscript critique I just received.

In Conclusion

Although I’ve made decisions given the choices I’ve made there’s always a level of flexibility that’s needed in life. My original goal was to submit my manuscript and make edits given the feedback I received. Where I found myself now is with an opportunity to do everything better. To get clearer and fall in love with my story harder.

I knew that writing a book was going to be hard but I had no idea how much leading and power I had over the work. It just goes to show if you really want to be a vessel for your art you can’t be scared of it. Otherwise, you would not be doing it any justice.

I hope this post inspires anyone on a similar journey to keep their chin up and keep chipping away. I wish I could look into the future and see what my final graphic novels look like. But there is something magical about knowing that I can read this post one day in the future and know exactly what’s going to happen next.

We all know reading is good for you. We’ve been told our whole lives. But sometimes it’s hard to fall in love with reading. Developing a love for reading doesn’t have to be a tumultuous undertaking. After all it’s something to enjoy and there are a few things you can do and different ways you can think about reading that will help you start your journey.

What Not to Do

1) Chores – Reading is not a chore. Sure sometimes we have to read things we don’t want to read. Hey, our life could depend on it but that’s not always the case. So make sure you don’t spend all of your reading energy on reading the things you have to read. There are more things in life to read than contracts, applications, and manuals.

2)Turn off – If you’re a neat freak then maybe a library book grosses you out. If you’re having difficulties with money then don’t buy new books. And if you hate how much time you spend on your computer or telephone then don’t read an ebook. We all have turn-offs. That’s natural. What’s not natural is you trying to read something in a format that doesn’t work with your lifestyle or preferences.

3)Time – Don’t decide to read something when you have no time. Like what’s the point? You’re just setting yourself up for a bad experience. Make sure that the time you dedicate to reading is time that you have available to use. Don’t try to cram a reading session into your life when there are a million other things on your mind.

What to Do

1)Safe Space – Create or find a space to read the book that you know you’ll enjoy. For example, I live with my family and the only time it’s quiet in the house is first thing in the morning or late at night. So I read early mornings when everyone is still asleep. I wake up, go to my living room, open the window shades and plop down on my couch. It’s perfect and I love it. Your safe space is a place and time when you will not be interrupted.

2)Check your body – Are you thirsty? Do you need to pee? Are you in the right headspace to read a book? Then please proceed. Otherwise don’t. You’ll be highly distracted if you don’t answer your needs first. And sure this may sound obvious but I highly doubt it. Because even I sit down sometimes, ready to read, and think, nope I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back book.

3)Your interests – As you begin this reading journey think about the things you like. Recently I read a nonfiction book that was a good book but it served as a reminder that I like stories with duel-worthy fictional plots. I need to steer away from non-fiction. So take your likes and dislikes into consideration when selecting what book to read.

How to Think

1)The cool kids are doing it – I am not into following the crowd but sometimes there’s the right crowd to follow. Readers to me are these people that are global citizens of the world. They are incredibly knowledgeable and understanding of different cultures. They’re also very forward-thinking. They can see outside of pop culture to determine their interests and values. Those are the kind of people I want to be like.

2) You are the creator – Sure movies and tv shows can allow you to experience a different time and place but nothing beats a good book. A book is a much more intimate experience. One where you’re able to understand all facets of a character’s world because you have more insight into their perspective. In visual mediums, our perspective is highly influenced by the visuals. Maybe you don’t like a character or a story because you’re not attracted to the character or the setting doesn’t appeal to you. In a book, you have the complete freedom to design the experience for yourself.

3)I am bigger than this life – Don’t tell me you’ve never pondered the meaning of life. Well, books do it for you all the time in the most masterful ways. Your horizons are broadened when you see how other people live. Dare I say – you may have a clearer idea (if not already) of who you want to be in this world. And you realize that your constraints are only the ones in your immediate environment. Something you can quickly shift.

Where to Start

1)What are you interested in? We all have something that we like in this world. Well, what’s yours? Find a book that encapsulates are presents this topic. Also, make sure it has amazing ratings.

2)What’s your favorite person reading? We all have these people in our lives that are just oh-so-cool. Who’s yours? I’m sure they read. Find out what they’re reading and copy them. Once you find someone who has similar interests in life. You’ll probably have similar interests in books.

3)Start small? Let’s not go crazy. Don’t try to read something that’s thousands of pages and incredibly dense. If you’re getting back into reading find a good children’s book. Why a children’s book? Because the literary techniques used in a young adult or children’s novel is different. Ideas are easier to grasp and follow and it will take less energy on your part to follow.

Once you develop a love for reading. Your life will become one beautiful adventure.