How are you doing, comic-wise?

[McDuffies]

So did you catch the fuck up? Was the fuck up difficult to catch? What are you gonna do with the fuck up now that you caught him?

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

[RobboAKAscooby]

So did you catch the fuck up? Was the fuck up difficult to catch? What are you gonna do with the fuck up now that you caught him?

There is absolutely no response I can make to this...

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

At the rate this is going I'mnever going to update again.


I'm just absolutely wrapped up in a cycle of inertia and self-loathing and even though I got pretty far last night I still am nowhere near close to done with this scene and it's so freaking discouraging, even though I mostly like the results and how everything is turning out step by step I just want to freaking have something to put up on my goddamned site.

I'm going out this evening and even though I had like 3 hours before I had to leave that I could have used to get shit done, I just couldn't get myself focused enough to just do it because I always have this anxiety like, if I start getting involved in it, time will suddenly fly away like some retarded magic carpet and I'll have to stop what I'm doing so "why bother beginning anyway." Like what the shit self. Even just getting 15 minutes done now is 15 minutes I don't have to worry about at some other time so what difference does it make, it literally doesn't make sense to just keep putting it off. I can't remember ever not having this problem.


I just want to cry and drink and cuddle with my boyfriend and watch dumb TV shows.

[chainmailbikini]

At the rate this is going I'mnever going to update again.


I'm just absolutely wrapped up in a cycle of inertia and self-loathing and even though I got pretty far last night I still am nowhere near close to done with this scene and it's so freaking discouraging, even though I mostly like the results and how everything is turning out step by step I just want to freaking have something to put up on my goddamned site.

I'm going out this evening and even though I had like 3 hours before I had to leave that I could have used to get shit done, I just couldn't get myself focused enough to just do it because I always have this anxiety like, if I start getting involved in it, time will suddenly fly away like some retarded magic carpet and I'll have to stop what I'm doing so "why bother beginning anyway." Like what the shit self. Even just getting 15 minutes done now is 15 minutes I don't have to worry about at some other time so what difference does it make, it literally doesn't make sense to just keep putting it off. I can't remember ever not having this problem.


I just want to cry and drink and cuddle with my boyfriend and watch dumb TV shows.

I know that feel. I think a lot of us probably do. I sit around watching tv, playing games, perusing tumblr/facebook, basically doing anything but something constructive. Occasionally I'll feel motivated and crank out a page, but it's hard to focus, and then I get angry at myself. Yeah, awesome stuff.

Just try to get one little thing done a day. It's not much, but it's better than nothing.

[JSConner800]

At the rate this is going I'mnever going to update again.


I'm just absolutely wrapped up in a cycle of inertia and self-loathing and even though I got pretty far last night I still am nowhere near close to done with this scene and it's so freaking discouraging, even though I mostly like the results and how everything is turning out step by step I just want to freaking have something to put up on my goddamned site.

I'm going out this evening and even though I had like 3 hours before I had to leave that I could have used to get shit done, I just couldn't get myself focused enough to just do it because I always have this anxiety like, if I start getting involved in it, time will suddenly fly away like some retarded magic carpet and I'll have to stop what I'm doing so "why bother beginning anyway." Like what the shit self. Even just getting 15 minutes done now is 15 minutes I don't have to worry about at some other time so what difference does it make, it literally doesn't make sense to just keep putting it off. I can't remember ever not having this problem.


I just want to cry and drink and cuddle with my boyfriend and watch dumb TV shows.

Like CMB said, a lot of people hit creative walls like this. I'm terrible about it, too. My old solution was to plan out my school schedule so I'd have a huge break in the middle of the day, then go to a coffee shop on campus and crank out scripts or stories by hand with no computers, no TVs, and no people to distract me. Now that I'm a graduate with only a part time job, I'd fallen back into my old slump of writing two sentences and then dicking around on the internet for two hours, but I've found a new solution. In order to help me through my latest writers' block, my girlfriend made a rule where every day I didn't see her I would have to write a page or we couldn't go out next time we were free. Now with the proper motivation, you can break any writers' block, and this has worked for me even though I haven't exactly kept up on the page count but shhhhh just don't tell her. It gives me an unselfish (well, semi-unselfish) reason to be creative, and sometimes you need that external force to push you when you can't push yourself.

So basically what I'm suggesting is tell your boyfriend to withhold cuddles until you finish X amount of comic stuff. Maybe it'll work. Or maybe it'll drive you crazy and you'll have to change your name to Very Crazy Cornpone.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

Thanks, guys. It's not even a motivation thing so much as just a focus thing. Like, I can't really compare it to anything but caffeine jitters. Did you ever have too much caffeine and then you try to set down to do some task and you just cannot? Like your hands are weebwooblin and your mind is like HARUHRHRH? I want to work on my comic terribly, it's like a painful longing, but then I sit down to try and my mind just foghorn-yells "NOOOOOOOOOOOOPE."

Some good news, Lent is over so I can try drinking again, lol. I had a few glasses of wine last night while I worked and I managed to finish the background lineart and pick out colors. My goal for today is to get done with textures. Ever since I changed the way I do colors, the whole process has become totally front-loaded. Like it used to be that sketching was the easiest part for me, inking about the same, and then coloring the most difficult. Now that I'm trying with mixed results to challenge myself compositionally, sketching is the hardest, inking is slightly easier, and coloring is easiest (because I have the colors all picked out beforehand and am no longer pooping everywhere whether colors are "TRUE AND CORRECT TO REAL LIFE" or not). So hopefully at least with this particular set things will be "all downhill from here."

[JSConner800]

You were probably just jonesing for the sauce. As usual, alcohol causes and solves all our problems

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

You were probably just jonesing for the sauce. As usual, alcohol causes and solves all our problems

The sad thing is you might be right. Lol. For some reason I am really tickled by the line "jonesing for the sauce." Time to replace your old quote in my sig with this one????


I colored the skies. Not the sunset yet because that's a bit more challenging. Saving it for another day. Kind of interested to see if it helps me out to color the background first and then the foreground.

Sometimes I think I found "solutions" to my work process, but I really think it's just that changing anything is refreshing and breathes life back into the process.

[Sortelli]

cuddly I bought an ad on your site does that help you? [] yes [] no

[Terotrous]

Well, things are going okay for me, my second novel is up to about 65k words, and the posting of the first one is also going well.

Honestly I think the secret to maintaining productivity is finding a good balance between everything in your life. If you're pushing yourself too hard you'll have those burnout periods, I definitely did back when I was doing my comic, particularly when I started doing like 4 updates a week. That didn't leave me enough time to play games and do other stuff and it just eventually stopped being fun.

My current rate of writing once a week on Fridays and working on the associated artwork whenever seems to work well. It's enough to make progress but not enough that it feels daunting.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

cuddly I bought an ad on your site does that help you? [X] yes [] no

teats roll down my cheeks

[JSConner800]

The sad thing is you might be right. Lol. For some reason I am really tickled by the line "jonesing for the sauce." Time to replace your old quote in my sig with this one????

Be my guest. It tickled me, too, but I assumed it was one of those lines that was only funny in my own head (I do have plenty of those as well).

Sometimes I think I found "solutions" to my work process, but I really think it's just that changing anything is refreshing and breathes life back into the process.

This is probably true for anybody. We all like to think that we have a surefire way to stay productive, but the scary thing is that there are no surefire ways - only methods you can try that may or may not jumpstart your creativity. Changing up your routine or your surroundings will definitely do that, and it's kind of just a good living tip besides.

teats roll down my cheeks

Don't ever fix this typo.

[RobboAKAscooby]

Sometimes I think I found "solutions" to my work process, but I really think it's just that changing anything is refreshing and breathes life back into the process.

This is probably true for anybody. We all like to think that we have a surefire way to stay productive, but the scary thing is that there are no surefire ways - only methods you can try that may or may not jumpstart your creativity. Changing up your routine or your surroundings will definitely do that, and it's kind of just a good living tip besides.

This is so true.
Lately I've been going into work early so that I can take advantage of an environment free of the distractions of the internet but even that isn't helping as much as I'd like.

[Cope]

...bugger, my first chapter was only one page off having exactly 123 pages.

[Sortelli]

cuddly I bought you a lap dance does that help you? [X] yes [] no

teats roll down my cheeks

Everyone wins!

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

cuddly I bought you a lap dance does that help you? [X] yes [] no

teats roll down my cheeks

Everyone wins!

LMAO

[LibertyCabbage]

At the rate this is going I'mnever going to update again.

I know I'm being Mr. Hypocrite giving advice on this since I can't update worth shit, but something you could try would be to schedule a block of "comic time" and plan your other activities around it. So, for example, you could plan to do stuff and eat dinner by 8, then say that 8 to 10 is "comic time," and then at 10 you stop working and watch TV or whatever.

[VeryCuddlyCornpone]

I've tried that, but it's the sort of inertia where that just doesn't work. i don't know if it's my will power or what, but there's something within that, if it decides I'm not getting drawing done, I ain't getting it done. Like even if I manage to sit down at my desk, "it" pulls the plug that connects my brain and fingers, and everything's a slog even if I get to pick up a pencil and put it to paper.

The past few days have been much better since I wrote that. I have no idea what changed really (other than being able to drink but I really hope that's not the only thing to which I can attribute success) but I just wasn't in a bad mood anymore and got the last page inked, got almost everything colored, and should have a page up by Friday or Saturday at the latest by the looks of things.

It's kind of like cleaning my room, where the room gets worse and worse until I can't stand it anymore, I can't stand the inhumanity of its grossness and I just uproot everything and clean the shit out of everything. I won't draw for days on end and then all of a sudden feel really internally embarassed and ashamed about it, a tiny blossom of motivation pokes forth from the soil, and it blooms and propagates all over the place for a bunch of days where I'm really productive and then uses up all the soil nutrients and dies dried out in the sun.


or something

[RobboAKAscooby]

Kind of ironic with the W.A.Y. about to begin but I'm kind of burned out...

After getting five pages up last week and three so far this week I thought I'd be able to knock out a few more tonight but it's been more like - draw a few lines take a break draw a bit more take a break - and I still haven't finished drawing one page.

Hopefully I'll get my mojo going soon.