Art, fictoromance and finding balance

( You can also read on Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-172599813 )

The sacred timetable

At long last summer was over and the first week of September flourished around me, sprouting here and there brand new ideas. My (undiagnosed ADHD??) brain had been putting things off all summer, or as I'd like to call it, “planning for September”. Now September is here and of course, it was time for a new timetable.

Haaaa - because surely now that the rain has returned, the kids are back in school and the house is quiet, I will now achieve all the wonderful things I dreamed under the heat wave. And in my pocket, I have the golden treasure: the ultimate timetable! Yes, every hour has a goal and there is no space for dilly-dally!

Well no.

The difference with the previous time I made that exact same (mistake) plan, is that this time it took me only a day to realise it wasn’t going to work, instead of a month.

Why do I seem to always set myself up to fail? I want to do so many things? But my brain, seeing the dreadful timetable on the day, is like a smoker trying to stop smoking: if someone gives them a deadline, they go into teenager-rebellious mode and refuse to follow it.

My dearest husband, we shall call him The Wise One, asked merrily on Monday if I had a good productive day, with the kids being back at school. Then he saw my face, my “meh” face, and heard “tomorrow will probably be better, I can’t be too hard on myself on the first day”. Alas, not the answer he thought he was going to receive. After one of these talks where he quickly sees the signs that I'm going back into the same negative way of thinking, he made a suggestion based on his own experience. “Instead of having time slots dedicated to each activity, why don't you just have one goal per day and the day is only successful if you achieve it.”

Onto day 2 then…Much better, I only focused on gym and writing and despite writing less than I thought, I ended up feeling a lot less stressed out and like I failed the day. One day, one goal, one creative focus…

What are my art goals?

Just like in Casita’s walls, the cracks started to appear last June. The webtoon was taking so damn long to be done. I kept going forwards, thinking “I just need to… I just need to…” but I kept failing to achieve the things I aimed for. I didn't get to find a publisher despite getting a couple of interviews with Hachette Romans, I didn't manage to publish one chapter of 40-50 panels every month, finally I didn’t get selected during webtoon’s competitions.

I was happy about the number of readers I have despite it all. More than 50 people wanting to read your comics is a great achievement. But I realised two things: one, the graphic choices I made were just a bit out of my comfort zone so I needed a lot of time and clear storyboards before I could ink, and colouring solo was taking longer than I thought, sometimes leaving me feeling a bit helpless with the color choices I made. Two, for the editor’s file I wrote the story plan over five books. I know. I KNOW. Typical beginner’s mistake.

The Wise One, seeing my despair over summer to realise it was going to take me years at this rate to finish the story, told me “Just because you started doesn't mean you’re stuck with it”. Now I took a long hard look at myself. Being optimistic was nothing when you face the reality of your own skills. What did I want to do with my art?

Why do I create anything? Part of it is that it's the thing that defines me. I’ve been drawing comics since high school and never really stopped. It just seems to me it’s the thing that I enjoy doing, but I don't know if I'm good enough to “make it”. Yes, you have to be optimistic! But then you start to think, “then why do I keep failing?”. My goal has always been to get published, because ultimately I want to help as many people as I can with my comics, and if I can make people fall in love with my characters, then I know I've achieved something.

So I reworked my goals. I will complete the webtoon before next year and write it as a novel instead, to submit it to a writing competition. For art, I will do smaller projects and collabs and see where it takes me. Once I have enough content, maybe I'll find an agent?

Secondly, I have a message that I wanted to deliver with each comic. When I wrote “Dear BFF”, I wanted to rewrite the story of a friendship that ended and control the unfolding of events this time. My second comics, the one I was struggling to publish monthly, is about another thing that defines me, fictoromance, and making it sound normal.

Being a fictoromantic

I won’t go into long details about this apart to tell you that this summer has also been eye opening. I’ve always loved fictional characters, whether I had partners or not. It’s just something that I do. But the past years, I thought that over sharing and dissecting this phenomenon was the way to go. I was doing fanart and contests…

This summer I realised i needed the opposite. Is it because I grew up in a small town where I might have been the only fictoromantic there? If you just have a hyperfixation, you want to share with others, absolutely. It’s a hobby to share. But if you are really fictoromantic, you don’t share. You keep this space sacred, you give it time and thought. It’s a practice.

And I feel so much more at peace now.

Similarly, I have not posted any art on Instagram all summer, and was thinking of the old days when I had a blog and could write and post images there and I didn't feel like a lack of likes or comment meant I was worthless. Today I stumbled upon a writers forum. An old school forum with those small emojis I could barely see on my desktop screen! No like button, no instant replies, they would come through the day…

Returning to your roots might be the way to go…