I'm sad and bored, hit me up

Shut_in_Commie 2021-08-26 06:22:29 UTC #1

I am not feeling enthusiastic about this anymore. I don't think anyone will be able to satisfy what I want. I am not a genius and I'm done pretending I'm better than anybody else here. All I want is someone to talk to who understands how I feel about art, and someone who feels at least similarly.

I think art and expression are like the same thing. I want to make art that portrays feelings really accurately, whether it be love, hate, fear, pain, happiness, whatever. I want someone who feels the same. If you want to hit me up, feel free. I prefer to use discord, but if you don't want to or can't then just DM me on this site.

I don't have a specific goal with this. You can talk to me about whatever, it can be completely unrelated if you want. I just want someone to talk to, on the chance they might feel the same as me.

Lamp#6147

crimson_mystery_cake 2021-08-26 06:27:32 UTC #2

Yoooo this is real. I feel as though I too have had to learn to temper my own ego with my art. Is what I’m creating good or bad? Who cares so long as I am happy with it.

I do have a discord but it’s not really my preferred method of communication. But whatever I’ll dm you I love making new friends!

Shut_in_Commie 2021-08-26 06:38:49 UTC #3

Cool cool. I want to hold inspiration long enough to finish something, but it feels impossible. Nothing anyone says makes me feel hopeful or inspired unless I'm actively working on something, and I feel invisible whenever I bring this up and people just tell me I can do it. The ego thing holds me back but its also a driving force of my work. I just want to give up, but this is the only thing I'm particularly good at in life.

crimson_mystery_cake 2021-08-26 08:08:28 UTC #4

Honestly I feel that SO MUCH. It can be really hard for me to find the motivation to just create. It can be daunting to pick up a pen sometimes.

I honestly just want to say that what you are feeling is completely valid. It’s not just something where you can snap to it and have it done. I completely sympathize with you. There are so many days where I just wish I could be more motivated and just get the work done so I can get the work done. I’ve been working on the first chapter of my story for pretty much years now.

But everything is not so bleak. I now pretty much am almost done with my first chapter. After so many years of rewrites and not knowing what the perfect start for the story is I’ve gotten it down. Not only that but I’ve drawn everything and even have the lineart inked. All I have to do is color, and I’m already over halfway done with doing the flat colors. And not only that but I’ve finished outlining my second, third and forth chapter. Is it perfect? Heck no but I am SO happy with it.

All this pretty much to say that there IS a light at the end of this tunnel, at least in my perspective. It might take a really long time but if you stick with it then I do believe that this ends up somewhere. And hey, I also want to say that it’s ok to NOT stick with it. If trying to create a comic is just too stressful and you’re not happy then it’s ok to reevaluate things. It’s ok to take a break and it’s alright if it turns out that this isn’t what you want to do. Maybe you’ll have to downsize your ambition or maybe you’ll have to find another way to work. For me learning to be motivated is as much as a skill as it is to learn how to draw. I’ve learned that my motivation comes up funnily enough when I’m at work, so something that I have done that has really helped was start carrying around some pocket journals and using them to sketch out my ideas. That’s helped tremendously, and also on my days off I’m trying more to get out of the house. It is a long process and there are so many days where I am just depressed and frustrated with myself but this is something that I really want to learn how to do no matter what, and through doing this I have learned so much about myself.

Shut_in_Commie 2021-08-26 09:34:30 UTC #5

thank you. I think motivation is my worst skill. I can't seem to stick with anything I come up with. Working on my things is usually very fun, but I just can't do it. I think learning to motivate myself for things like this should be my first priority.

iHateFridays 2021-08-26 10:31:23 UTC #6

Motivation can be hard to keep sometimes… but hey, we’re all in this together

MShadowlawn 2021-08-27 16:14:14 UTC #7

Some hard advice from Neil Gaiman:
"If you only write when you’re inspired you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist because you’re going to have to make your word count today and those words aren’t going to wait for you whether you’re inspired or not." Full quote here.

Another piece of advice, from me: Figure out WHY you're not writing, and go from there.
Are you afraid you won't get it quite right? Don't worry too much about it and dive right in. The first draft is never meant to be the cleanest; I've had dialogue that came out as chunky word salad with confused motives on the first draft but completely cleaned it up on just the second draft.

Are you just not particularly in the mood to do it right now, or are trying to wait for inspiration? Try knuckling down; hard work is a natural part of the process and sometimes there's no way around hard thinking to figuring out how you're going to do a scene. You might even surprise yourself with the results.

But if every fiber of your being would rather be doing something else, if the thought of writing another 500 words makes you grind your teeth, maybe it's time to hang it up and quit for just a while.