#40: What May Be Holding You Back, and What Definitely Isn't
You and I have a lot in common.
You and I love comics. We LOVE them. We love reading them, we love talking about them, and more than anything else, we love creating them.
And you and I also have goals and dreams, and comics play a big part in them. We want to tell our stories and have people actually read and enjoy them. We want to be recognized as creators who made a difference, who contributed something wonderful to the medium that we love. We want to see our books in comic shops, and book stores, and on the bed stands of comic readers everywhere. We want to someday see financial rewards from our creations, not only to help pay the bills and put food on the table, but as validation of our work...after all, in our society, great work is usually rewarded with Benjamins.
And in our heart of hearts, you and I probably have some bigger dreams...ones we might not share with others, but are there nonetheless. These dreams a likely colored with our own variations on what success looks like. Some of us dream of writing Spider-man. Some of us dream of drawing a top selling Big Two event book. Some of us dream of walking the red carpet after one of our optioned properties hits the big screen. Many of us dream of quitting our day jobs to live, breathe and create comics as our primary profession.
Hang onto those dreams. Hell, dream even bigger. It doesn't take any more effort to dream big than it does to dream small. But once you have your dream firmly in place, you need to turn it into a plan. And while dreams don't necessarily have to be firmly grounded in your present reality, plans always do.
Here's a little exercise: Think of your biggest, juiciest, dreamy dream dream for yourself in comics. Come on, dream! Maybe it's a gig working for a certain company or with a certain creator. Maybe it's a number of books sold or a level of celebrity and acknowledgement achieved. Whatever it is, think of it and picture it in your head.
Now ask yourself just one question: Why I haven't I already achieved my goal?
Fact is, there are always going to be obstacles, constraints, and factors in and outside of our control that will affect the pace at which we achieve our goals. Successful people will identify all of those obstacles, and devise a plan to overcome each and every one they can.
So, what are these obstacles holding us back as creators? All of our situations are different, but allow me get on my soapbox for a moment and offer some thoughts here.
Three things that are NOT holding you back
Who You Know - When it seems like your career is not getting any traction, it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking it's not what you know or can do, but it's who you know that'll get you that gig. That's unproductive thinking. While it is true that we are more likely to give jobs to or want to work with people we know and like, that's only part of it. The bigger part is confidence that he or she can do the job and do it well. I said before, your focus shouldn't be on who you can get to know, but rather on who you can get to know you. And people come to know you by being visible, by putting good work out there, and by constantly and consistently improving your game.
Your Job - For far too many of us, our job is exactly that. A J-O-B. A transaction where we trade our time (and maybe a little bit of our soul) for money. If not for the paycheck, we probably wouldn't show up tomorrow. In contrast, when working on comics, we're alive, we're living our passion...if only we could do this all day and get paid for it! That's the dream, right?
Having that as a goal is fine. However, sometimes it can seem like it's the 9-5 job that is sucking our energy and life force away from our passion, and hindering our progress as comics creators. Well, that thinking is unproductive, and wrong. Regardless of how much we love our hate our jobs, for most of us, those day jobs are exactly what allow us to pursue comics. A steady paycheck, a roof over our heads and food on the table is prerequisite for having the time and energy to work on comics. Especially in this economy, be thankful you have work at all.
Now, if you absolutely hate your day job and know that comics is what you want to be doing with your life, then it might be time to work a little harder. It might be time to take up two 9-5ers...your 9am-5pm day job, and spend 9pm to 5am working on comics. This kind of schedule isn't sustainable over a long stretch of time, but if you're stuck in a rut, and despairing, it may be time to put your head down and WORK.
Money - Very few of us have as much money as we would like. And creating comics can be an expensive endeavor. But lack of money isn't keeping your dreams at bay. No matter how cash strapped we may seem to be, the fact is, if our lives or our love ones' lives depended on it, we could raise the funds to create the comics we want to make. It might not be easy. We might have to beg and borrow, sell a ton of stuff, take on two or three extra jobs, cut our pull lists, or (gasp) stop buying comic books all together for a while. But it COULD be done. It's a matter of priority and how bad you want it.
So, the next time you catch yourself saying I can't afford to pay that page rate or do that print run, remember it's not that you can't afford it. It's that you're choosing not to find a way to afford it. There's a big difference there.
Three things that MAY be holding you back
Attitude - "Your attitude will determine your altitude." It's a pithy saying, but it's so true. I observe some creators who have a "Work, work, work...Whine, whine, whine" attitude and it's slowing the pace of them achieving their goals. Studies have proven that optimistic people are far more successful in life than pessimists. Debby Downers and Negative Nancies are no fun to work with. What is your default disposition? Here's a test: Think of the last time you had a creative setback? Maybe a bad portfolio review, a snarky critique, or a pass from an editor? Now, think of your initial reaction? Did you get mad or defensive? Did you complain and vent? Or did you look for the good in the situation and get back after it?
I've had a few setbacks lately myself. Zuda closing its submissions doors 24 hours before my team and I were about to submit EPIC was a blow. But I didn't waste time lamenting what might have been. I turned my attention to how this could be turned into something positive, and I'm going to have SO much more fun at Baltimore Comic Con this year selling copies of EPIC #0 than I would have had trying to shill for votes on Zuda. I was recently disappointed to not get artist alley space at New York Comic Con this year, really wanting to attend. But I recognized such was out of my control, and now see it as an opportunity to add a few others shows to my 2010 con schedule.
The point is, attitude is huge. If you can train yourself to find lessons in every setback, and to focus on finding solutions to every problem, you're going to be well on your way to your goals. (And a lot more fun to be around.)
Talent - There's no getting around it. You've got to be great at this to make it. Not just good. And not only do you have to be great...you have to be consistently great. You have to demonstrate a track record of greatness.
No matter who you are or how long you've been doing this, there is always room for improvement. So keep on improving. Take a class. Read a book. Ask some creators whose work you respect for honest critique. Offer to critique other's work. (Sometimes you can recognize flaws in your own approach to story in the work of others.) Expand your influences and study other artforms. Challenge yourself to get a little better at everything you do.
At the same time, I'd caution against letting the "Is this good enough?" question paralyze you from producing work and getting it out there into the world. If you're working on your first comic, don't spend three years on the script. Just start making comics. Every artist has a ton of lousy pages in them before they can start churning out good ones, and every writer has some lousy scripts they need to get out of their system before they can start writing gold.
Fear - Fear is always the big stumbling block, and the biggest reason we'll never achieve the goals we set. Fear that we'll fall on our faces, fear that we'll do work people will hate, fear that we'll fail. It's far, far easier to sit on the sidelines and point to things out of our control as the reason for our lack of success. "Editors won't give indy guys a chance." "It's impossible to make any money at this." "It's just not worth my time." These are all thoughts we might have that are rooted in fear.
Don't let fear cripple you. When you have negative thoughts about your work, try to figure out where they're coming from. Then figure out something you can do address the underlying problem. Hell, if it helps, whenever you come to a big stumbling block, imagine yourself to be the protagonist in one of your stories. What would he do? What action would she take? Always think of it that way, and someday, after you've achieved your goals, you'll realize that your personal story also turned out to be one worth telling.
So, there you have it. What did I miss? What's holding you back? Why aren't you already where you want to be? And most importantly, what are you going to do to get there?
Tyler James is a comics creator residing in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He writes and draws Over, a romantic comedy online graphic novel updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also writes Tears of the Dragon, an epic fantasy webcomic. His work has been featured at Zuda Comics, and includes Interrogation Control Element, a political action thriller, and Super Seed, the story of the world's first super powered fertility clinic. When not making comics, Tyler works as a game designer and content producer for a software company.
Contact Tyler directly at tylerjamescomics@gmail.com, keep up with him at his blog, or follow him on Twitter.
Attention Readers: If you enjoy this column, you might be interested in checking out The ComixStreet Recap. It's a new series I've begun where I share and comment on interesting topics, resources, and events relevant to comic creators. The column is bi-weekly, and posts on Thursdays.
Previous Columns
1: Big Goals
2: Resolutions
3: The Great Idea
4: Research Part I
5: Research Part II
6: The Killer Pitch Part I - The High Concept
7: The Killer Pitch Part II - The Synopsis
8: Pay Your Artists
9: Zuda Comics- A Tale of Five Submissions
10: Creating Great Characters Part I (Or Why Wolverine is Everywhere)
11: Creating Great Characters Part II (Or Why Wolverine is Everywhere)
12: Structurally Sound- The Beginning
13: Your Reputation
14: Structurally Sound- The Middle
15: Structurally Sound - The End
16: Your First Con
17: Beat It
18: Memorable Scenes
19: Mailbag
20: Comics Dialogue - Part I
21: Comics Dialogue - Part II
22: Baltimore Comic Con - Part I
23: Baltimore Comic Con - Part II
24: Is It Worth It?
25: The Re-Write Part I
26: The Re-Write Part II
27: The Re-Write Part III
28: Taking Initiative
29: Setting the Table for a New Year of Creating Comics
30: Ready to Script
31: An Artist Ready Script
32: Going All In
33: The Dip and Being the Best in the World
34: Patience Pep Talk
35: Tools You Should Be Using: Viddler
36: Zuda Says No More Competitions
37: Business Mailbag
38: 30 Characters Challenge Post-Script
39: Google Wave - 5 Uses for Comic Creators
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