"Has anyone else ever had similar big fears of commitment and anxiety regarding their projects? Do you guys still struggle with it regarding your passion projects? Have you ever conquered it? please share if you have."
I do a fairly big, but not too big, comic most of you have probably run across, but few read. I publish here anon, due to separating opinion and politics from my actual product. What I have to say usually pisses off most people, and I don't want that ripping down the comic--it actually makes me a living!
THE BIG PROBLEM--most novices want to be "the next" X, Y or Z. Harry Potter? MCU? Superman? My Hero Academia? Whatever it is--STOP! There is already such a product, and most of these are bloated uber projects crafted by decades, from the hands of many-many people! You are one (maybe two) people starting at the bottom. Make something simple, something entertaining, and begin entertaining an audience--then expand and become more complex and/or drag that audience around to other ideas you set up and post online.
INSTANT SUCCESS--doesn't happen often, in fact it is almost never. It's like getting the big lottery win. If you want to make a living at this, and aren't an instant success, you will need to work continuously and make it a life's effort. You should work 60+ hours a week and always try to improve art, ideas, and writing. Having done this for decades, I've seen a lot go down; most instant successes are whisked away after a few years. "Easy come, easy go" in effect: people that get instant success believe they are gifted with instant success and it will be an everyday thing for them through all their life. Wrong. Most instant successes try other venues and find little success, then run back to their success too late, the audience has fled and forgotten them. In pop culture, everything has a season, and then it is gone. You might get 2 or 3 roaring years, maybe 5, but rarely more than 10 . Look at big music acts, actors, comic book artists, movie directors, etc. They generally have less than a 10 year success span in pop culture.
$$$-If you are working purely for the money, you will get none. You have to deliver a product. Thus the audience is quite a large part of the equation of success. Think of the audience. They don't know what they truly want, but when they get it--they love it. A tricky lock to pick.
DO IT FOR YOU!--Audiences want entertainment, but they crave when they get something special. Part of the artist must be present in the works to give it a unique spirit/heart/expression. Forget about "tropes" or "stereotypes" and what exists or might be overused: if it entertains, USE IT! Let no one hinder what you need to do to create, that includes peer pressure, professional advice, personal advice, or societal trends. However, don't get self-indulgent to the point that you forget the audience. Don't let the audience bully you, either; know the limits of what you want to deliver, deliver it, and don't let opinion sway you from things you KNOW you want to aim for.
HIGHER POWER--I wrote tons of screenplays and novels and drew dozens of comics and worked for years in high-budget animation. Aside from working directly for others, I never made any money until I attached to higher power. I saw people sell their souls, literally, and they invited in all sorts of troubles to gain some flash of success (they end up with myriad personal problems, depression, serious health troubles, demonic manifestations, constant anxiety, etc). Having seen that, I went the opposite way and gave myself to God--asking to be his agent in the creative realm. he delivered! It took a month, but I had the basic idea. It took about 9 months of private work on the idea before he gave me the bigger idea and the conclusion. It was so bizarre and antithetical to my sensibilities that I prayed for answers to why I was meant to do this project--immediate answers in thought form, all quite shocking to me. I began down the path of publishing, and now make a fair income from it for the first time in my life. I'm working for God, not myself, and through all the daunting moments (there were plenty) I kept iron-strong faith. It paid off! All the daunting moments were BS--detractors and detrimental agents. If I didn't have God behind me, I'd have been lost and gotten shut down by the various trials and tribulations that came along from finances to audience to family opinion, etc. I never felt so strong, before. That's the power of subjugating yourself to the highest of powers and working for more than just self-serving pleasures.
CONCLUSION--whatever you do, you will need lots of hard work and you will have to make serious choices and back it with determination. If you can't, don't worry too much: this might be something that trains you a little better for something else you were meant to do in life. It might give you better understanding. Let you time as a creator provide you with something. Not doing it, you gain nothing, unless you do something else more important to you.
