Tag Archives: creation

I skipped ahead a bit in my drawing challenge. This is day 13, a comic. I couldn’t figure out how to improve the quality of my scan, or if my scanner was already at max quality but I did my best. This is the first time I’ve tried colouring in a comic using a computer program and I’m quite proud of the result. I’d love to do more of this sort of thing, especially if I get one of those spiffy Inkling pens.

So a bit about the comic. I forget where I first read about ordinary superpowers, but I loved the idea. I think everyone should consider what their ordinary superpowers are and celebrate them. Don’t forget to be awesome, you know? For example, an ordinary superpower of giraffes’ could be loving one another so so much, and one of my ordinary superpowers could be resisting reblogging every cute cat video I see. One of Adam’s superpowers is clearly having an incredibly long reach. 🙂

P.S. Tell me about your ordinary superpower and I may just use it in my next comic!

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through

Ira Glass (via Rabbit Write’s interview on Gala Darling)

This all sounds oddly familiar and comforting.