Dead End
I feel like I'm standing at a dead end.
When I think ahead all I can think about are the little tasks and things at hand that I want/need to do. That's the way my head works. I think in little chunks. You can't ask me if I'm available to do something next week because I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. I can think big, I can dream big, but those tasks are not worded in achievable things. Things like becoming an amazing writer, like being a great artist. They are not little steps, they engulf all my little tasks in one.
I think little, but I dream big. At this stage, while I'm still on my holidays in the last free weeks before uni, my head looks like this:
-finish that lineart
-paint that lineart
-organise those hk/japan photos on my harddrive
-finish that fanfiction
-sketch up a new artwork
-do lineart for that new artwork
-read through manuscript submission
-final edit manuscript submission
-send manuscript submission
-get to chapter LX of "The Count of Monte Cristo"
-get to chapter LXXX
-finish the book
-start "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"
Those are the kind of miniature goals I set for myself every day. I'm a list person. I write lists for everything, little things like that. I feel like when I can break down larger tasks into smaller bits I am more capable of it. I believe in Divide and Conquer.
I feel really happy when I can cross things off my lists. Being able to throw away a completed list is great. But sometimes I get so attached to that list that I can't throw it away and it just accumulates dust with the rest of the crap on my desk.
I don't know where I'm going.
I don't know where I'm at.
I'm confused. I'm a bit lonely. But I don't terribly want human interaction either.
I'm a bit of a introvert. True fact. I'm borderline, but I tilt more to being introverted. I really think socialising is an effort, but it doesn't mean I have trouble interacting at all.
I think I'm scared.
I can play the carefree optimist easy. I can be completely laid-back and nonchalent to everyone. But when the tasks at hand are too big for me to cut down into pieces, when I'm not sure how I'll climb the mountain, when I can't quite imagine what to do I come face to face with reality. Reality really sucks.
I'm finally being nervous about uni. Don't see any reason why I should be, but I am. But that's not really what I'm scared about.
Con Campbell talked about existential angst at NextGen12 this year. But that's not it either.
I think this world has too many talented people and too many artists sometimes. Even if you become amazing at what you do, you won't stand out from everyone else around you, because they're just as amazing as you are.
I was really happy yesterday morning, but my mood deteriorated later on. I spent all morning on deviantart and then pixiv. Mainly pixiv. This is the thing about pixiv, you either become incredibly inspired or incredibly depressed. Or in my case, both. One after the other.
I got really inspired. I love things like colours and sceneries. I know, I hate landscape photography and still-lives in general, but I adore the landscapes and places that people can create by themselves. I like the additions of purples and violets in the shadows and the blacks. I like the green tinges at the end of the lights. I like artists who can see those extra things and bring places to life.
I like negative space. I like quirky composition. I like simple lineart and flat colours and flat patterns. I like beautiful bright and magnificently deep colours. I like complicated works as well, the obscurest detail, the amount of thought and love and dedication that you can see in artworks.
Ideas and new artworks were already filling up my head. I couldn't wait to get started, to put those sketches on paper. Then I remembered the artwork that I've put off for a year and that I haven't even started. And I could hardly fill in the blank paper.
I feel dead-ended by many things. Things like my art style. I'm breaking out of it, I know, but it's a slow process. I don't want to draw manga/anime for ever. I'm capable of various different styles now. And I want to keep expanding, doing everything. But at the same time, there's that tugging on my sleeve that wants to know my speciality. Because artists should have their own style, right? Because there should be something that people recognize it, that people admire in it everytime. Something that makes people know that it's Banksy.
I've been drawing non-stop for the last years now, but the more I draw, the further away I seem to get. Ah damn, can't I just BE Shaun Tan? Please? Or Benjamin Zhang? I'd like that.
Something else that I'm currently dead-ended by is my writing. I'm about to send off my manuscript submission to an agency I really really want. And I've spent who knows how long of my life researching and reading relevant articles on everything there is to know on formatting, structure and etiquette. But sometimes sources can contradict each other. And what worries me is when I'm rejected, how will I know if it is my writing that is not good enough or my layout? I tell myself it's my writing because I know then that it is my fault and I can do better.
I'll send it this week. Really.
This writing industry is terrifying. Packaging up people's thoughts and creations and hearts and then distributing them. What a job.
It feels like I've given myself a last chance. Like it's almost time to give up on this story and leave a piece of myself behind.
So bloody scared. Scared. Scared. Scared.
I don't like dead ends.
When I think ahead all I can think about are the little tasks and things at hand that I want/need to do. That's the way my head works. I think in little chunks. You can't ask me if I'm available to do something next week because I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. I can think big, I can dream big, but those tasks are not worded in achievable things. Things like becoming an amazing writer, like being a great artist. They are not little steps, they engulf all my little tasks in one.
I think little, but I dream big. At this stage, while I'm still on my holidays in the last free weeks before uni, my head looks like this:
-finish that lineart
-paint that lineart
-organise those hk/japan photos on my harddrive
-finish that fanfiction
-sketch up a new artwork
-do lineart for that new artwork
-read through manuscript submission
-final edit manuscript submission
-send manuscript submission
-get to chapter LX of "The Count of Monte Cristo"
-get to chapter LXXX
-finish the book
-start "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"
Those are the kind of miniature goals I set for myself every day. I'm a list person. I write lists for everything, little things like that. I feel like when I can break down larger tasks into smaller bits I am more capable of it. I believe in Divide and Conquer.
I feel really happy when I can cross things off my lists. Being able to throw away a completed list is great. But sometimes I get so attached to that list that I can't throw it away and it just accumulates dust with the rest of the crap on my desk.
I don't know where I'm going.
I don't know where I'm at.
I'm confused. I'm a bit lonely. But I don't terribly want human interaction either.
I'm a bit of a introvert. True fact. I'm borderline, but I tilt more to being introverted. I really think socialising is an effort, but it doesn't mean I have trouble interacting at all.
I think I'm scared.
I can play the carefree optimist easy. I can be completely laid-back and nonchalent to everyone. But when the tasks at hand are too big for me to cut down into pieces, when I'm not sure how I'll climb the mountain, when I can't quite imagine what to do I come face to face with reality. Reality really sucks.
I'm finally being nervous about uni. Don't see any reason why I should be, but I am. But that's not really what I'm scared about.
Con Campbell talked about existential angst at NextGen12 this year. But that's not it either.
I think this world has too many talented people and too many artists sometimes. Even if you become amazing at what you do, you won't stand out from everyone else around you, because they're just as amazing as you are.
I was really happy yesterday morning, but my mood deteriorated later on. I spent all morning on deviantart and then pixiv. Mainly pixiv. This is the thing about pixiv, you either become incredibly inspired or incredibly depressed. Or in my case, both. One after the other.
I got really inspired. I love things like colours and sceneries. I know, I hate landscape photography and still-lives in general, but I adore the landscapes and places that people can create by themselves. I like the additions of purples and violets in the shadows and the blacks. I like the green tinges at the end of the lights. I like artists who can see those extra things and bring places to life.
I like negative space. I like quirky composition. I like simple lineart and flat colours and flat patterns. I like beautiful bright and magnificently deep colours. I like complicated works as well, the obscurest detail, the amount of thought and love and dedication that you can see in artworks.
Ideas and new artworks were already filling up my head. I couldn't wait to get started, to put those sketches on paper. Then I remembered the artwork that I've put off for a year and that I haven't even started. And I could hardly fill in the blank paper.
I feel dead-ended by many things. Things like my art style. I'm breaking out of it, I know, but it's a slow process. I don't want to draw manga/anime for ever. I'm capable of various different styles now. And I want to keep expanding, doing everything. But at the same time, there's that tugging on my sleeve that wants to know my speciality. Because artists should have their own style, right? Because there should be something that people recognize it, that people admire in it everytime. Something that makes people know that it's Banksy.
I've been drawing non-stop for the last years now, but the more I draw, the further away I seem to get. Ah damn, can't I just BE Shaun Tan? Please? Or Benjamin Zhang? I'd like that.
Something else that I'm currently dead-ended by is my writing. I'm about to send off my manuscript submission to an agency I really really want. And I've spent who knows how long of my life researching and reading relevant articles on everything there is to know on formatting, structure and etiquette. But sometimes sources can contradict each other. And what worries me is when I'm rejected, how will I know if it is my writing that is not good enough or my layout? I tell myself it's my writing because I know then that it is my fault and I can do better.
I'll send it this week. Really.
This writing industry is terrifying. Packaging up people's thoughts and creations and hearts and then distributing them. What a job.
It feels like I've given myself a last chance. Like it's almost time to give up on this story and leave a piece of myself behind.
So bloody scared. Scared. Scared. Scared.
I don't like dead ends.
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