Losing your mojo

[carloswebcomic]

Everything has a nemesis. Think Batman and Joker, Luke and Darth Vader, hippies and soap. Well, I have a nemesis too.
You see, I'm a talentless hack that gets lucky every week and brings out a new page, and as such, I live in fear of the day when I run out of ideas.
It's almost paralysing and the idea that one day, no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to come up with new material makes me break into a cold sweat.

Am I the only one with this problem?

[zelkats]

Nope, you're not the only one. Our ideas are the ones that make readers interested in our work in the first place. I've always felt like I've been winging it and am lucky enough to have some people like my work. I fear the day I have nothing else to offer.

I kind of see it happening in other works (Tv shows, comics) when jokes and situations feel either forced, stale or like they're following a pattern. Typically, those are long series' (doesn't matter if they're short form or long form).

My way of dealing with this is to make sure my series doesn't drag on, otherwise I might risk tossing in ridiculous ideas. I'm not going to aim for a three-volume comic and I'm fine with just one volume. Then when I move on to another story, ideas for it will be relatively fresh.

[Pandastrophic]

I agree with zelkats, I think if you have your series planed out properly, you know the start middle and end then you'll be fine. Many series who lost their mojo are series I feel are forced to continue because they bring in good ratings, I can name a few manga like this too where you feel like it should have ended at a certain point but it kept going because of popularity (bleach)

[carloswebcomic]

Well, my comic is a joke-per-page thing, there is no storyline as such, just an underlying theme.
It's pretty harrowing actually.

[AnnaLandin]

No, you're definitely not the only one living in fear of running out of any creative originality.

I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a complete panic, because what if I've used up all of my good ideas? What if this is it? What if from now on, I'll just invent pointless re-hashes of old ideas, desperately striving to recapture any spark of originality?

And then I can't sleep, and am a mess the next morning, and it sucks.

But you know what the funny thing is? I keep coming up with ideas. Because I keep experiencing and learning new things, I get more and more to draw from when I need inspiration, so instead of running out, I keep getting MORE mojo.

I just wish my brain could skip the panic-in-the-middle-of-the-night part of this process.

[Noglastiaa]

Ahh I get what you mean. Sometimes I even feel like all of my ideas are so unoriginal. Like they've been done so many times before, or what if they have? The fear of being so unoriginal that i myself feel like I'm just copying terrifies me cause it's almost the same as not having anymore jokes to begin with. :c

[mariusthered]

i will let you into a cartoonist secret ......eavesdrop when ever you are out.
I'm not suggesting you should join in conversation with total strangers , but keeping ears open when riding on the bus or train and walking out and about can make you over hear snippets of conversation that can develop in to plot lines and cartoons.

[R.n.P]

Nope bleach is actually continuing because the author kubo tite haven't explained every secret n revealed every mystery he normally keeps the fans guessing on

[KSlinger]

Haha, nope! I'm not afraid of running out of ideas, I'm afraid of being unoriginal, and of having too many ideas altogether. So many that I lose track of what I'm doing and end up doing nothing at all.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not under the impression that my ideas are solid gold, but I know I'm pretty great at expanding on ideas exponentially so no matter how small the hook might be I can safely work outwards from there.

If you're worried about running out of ideas I strongly suggest getting into something like improv writing or live action roleplay (the likes of Who's Line Is It Anyway?). Exercises like those are great at forcing you to be creative. You're probably way better at it than you think.

[zetina]

I'm more afraid of becoming blind than I am of running out of ideas.

NOTE: my eyes are fine.

[R.n.P]

I've already planned every aspect of mine and I'm trying to add even more http://tapastic.com/series/THE-LAST-SAMURAI http://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-last-samurai/list?title_no=15779 pls don't be annoyed by me pasting my link I'm trying to advertise too

[carloswebcomic]

Oh, I didn't realise those fears were mutually exclusive. So I guess I'll have to give up my fear of the zombie apocalypse.

[mg78]

when it happen to me, it mean to move in new situations like meet people, talk with friends or coworkers, doing other things, watch movies and anime or just yt's trash...

[hecdora]

NEVER give up on the fear of the zombie apocalypse. That's when you lose the war

[mariusthered]

I'll have to give up my fear of the zombie apocalypse.

i think that's happened already where i live i just passed five zombies on the way home ( or they might have been junkies)

[bjornar]

I get this every single time I'm trying to come up with some new ideas:

Phase 1. These ideas are horrible. I can't use any of them.
Phase 2. Maybe I'll try drawing this one anyway.
Phase 3. I don't remember how to draw anymore. My drawing sucks.
Phase 4. Maybe I'll try to fix this in Photoshop.
Phase 5. Hmm.. This could work.
Phase 6. Did it! Now, to hide it quickly from view and not look at it or think about it anymore before uploading!