Weekly Update - 97 (Patreon)

Actually had this panel idea in mind for years, I'm liking how it's turning out so far.

Was supposed to have an echocardiogram today to see if I could get any answers about my health... but now it seems as though I might have caught Covid so I'll have to reschedule.

I'm fine, I'm vaccinated so my symptoms were pretty minor and I'm already feeling better, and all the rest of my friends who I've been in contact with got their booster shots a long time ago and they all seem to be asymptomatic, so that's good. It's just annoying because now I have to reschedule all my doctors and delay the answers I want for all the OTHER crap going on with me.

Anyway...

Comic this week? Hopefully!  I've fallen behind again thanks to sleeping through the past day but I should still be able to get it done before Wednesday.

Drawing: Page 128

Reading: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie (I said I was slow!)

Playing: Total War: Warhammer 2 (only because I REALLY want to play TW: Warhammer 3 - which Daemons of Chaos faction are YOU going to play first?)

Ramble:

Someone asked me the other day if I could give them feedback on a novel they were writing. They wanted to know if it was good or not.  I had to step away for a bit, pace around the house and think about my answer, because it sparked a huge, giant train of thought.

Now, it was pretty obvious the person wasn't an experienced writer, but I didn't think that ripping into their writing and redlining the piss out of it and commenting about the poor pacing and rampant redundancy and shallow characters would do them any good. After thinking about it for some time, I sat down and simply told them, "don't worry about whether or not it's good. If you're having fun writing it, keep writing." I elaborated a bit more on the sentiment of course, but I want to go into far, far greater depth here.

The point, I think, is to not let yourself be discouraged by trying to meet criteria that may not even apply to what you are making. If you are writing a novel, good, keep writing it. If you are getting close to finished with it and you are getting serious about trying to publish said novel, THEN you can start to worry about whether or not it's good enough to sell. Even then, the criteria that makes a novel "good" will vary from person to person, from genre to genre and from publisher to publisher. So don't worry about it too much. Write it for you. Write the story that you want to read, and you'll satisfy most of the criteria for what makes a story good.

This is advice I would give to anyone doing anything creative. It's advice that kept me going through the early years of God Slayers, when very few people had even noticed I was making it. It's one of my core rules: Do it for you. We see it all the time in creative fields all over the place, in TV shows, in movies, in video games. If a company is trying to push people to make something because they just want to make money, we get things like the Matrix sequels. But if the team driving the project is really passionate about what they are making, then we get awesome stuff like Arcane. The latter can even turn into the former, when the budget runs out and cuts have to be made. Consider always WHY you are making a thing. Is it for money? Is it to try and toss a net out to appeal to the widest audience? Or is it for you?

I know my story doesn't appeal to everyone, but I'm not trying to write it for everyone. I'm not writing it to try and make a lot of money or to try and appeal to as many people as possible. I'm writing it because I have a story in my head that I think is pretty interesting and I hope that my telling of it will appeal to people who have similar interests as me. I don't know if my story is good, but like I've said before, that's not really for me to decide. I've been waiting for the day I receive my first piece of seriously angry critique. I know there's someone out there who has looked at my comic and gone, "Yuck! There's like five poop jokes in the first chapter, wtf, why do people like this carp[sic]?!"

While I welcome all negative feedback, it's important (and far more effective,) to deliver it in a constructive way. If I told that person that their novel wasn't good, would that discourage them from continuing to try writing it? That would be the worst outcome, since the only way to improve at anything is to keep practicing the craft. It's okay to not succeed at the thing you are trying, but I never want anyone to ever stop trying. There's plenty of people who toss their opinions in all directions without ever considering the impact it might have on someone. Being a resident of this here Internet, I'm no stranger to harsh critique. I've mentally prepared myself for the day when I am at last confronted by the person who is angry enough about the existence of my comic to reach out and send me a furious note somewhere. You all know the kind of critique I'm talking about: "AMG, this is the worst trash on the internet and you are a bad writer and an even worse artist and I've seen dog turds of higher quality than your entire life kys" or "What a shit of piece! I will become back my money! I hope in your next time a cow on a trash farm, you sucker!"

Now, I've yet to receive anything of the sort. On the contrary, what feedback I have received has been really encouraging and positive, thanks to all of you awesome folks. However, I've observed before as a third party just how devastating comments like that can be, especially when they are directed towards aspiring creatives who are early in their efforts and are still trying to build their confidence. I like to think I'm stubborn enough that I've prepared my ego to take that hit. For one thing I find it amusing that someone would get so worked up over a piece of entertainment media to send such a message. How cushy their life must be if the most dire thing ever to happen to them is a piece of entertainment media they are moderately to severely displeased with. Game developers receive angry death threats all the time. It's bizarrely common, and, honestly, pathetic that someone would go so far as to threaten an actual human being with death over the delay or status of a digital product.

This has been quite the ramble. I should probably wrap it up somehow. I guess, regardless of the presence or absence of critique, it's easy to become overwhelmed with doubts, in any creative pursuit. For example, I continue to worry about the current status of my comic's story. I know that what's going on inside the Citadel is probably outside the range of what most people expect, perhaps some see it as a twist, but perhaps I've failed to properly foreshadow things and properly sell its probability. At this point, I'm okay with there being a little bit of confusion, since Kiva would be likewise confused, should he become aware of what is going on. I hope that as things start to become clear to Kiva, they will become clear to you as well. It takes a measure of faith, I suppose, that as I'm retelling Kiva's story to you, that I'm telling it in the best way that I can.

At the end of it all, if you are doing anything creative, do it for you, and never stop doing it for you. Always keep trying, and always keep practicing, and don't let yourself be discouraged by anything, for any reason, so long as it continues to be the thing you want to do.