Promises Promises

It’s 2020 now (gosh). I was looking over some of my past blog posts up here, with all of their many promises and declarations, and now have to finally admit, where my work-in-progress Marry Me a Little is concerned there are some things over which I have less control than I’d like. I keep fretting and fussing over deadlines. When I meet them it’s great and when I don’t, I feel bad. But my flow doesn’t always flow the way I want it to. In 2019 I got off to a rocky start, with a long and complicated move (do not recommend selling your house mid-winter, my people) and pet-grief (had to put our beloved Ginger down in January). I ended up basically abandoning Marry Me until bloody July, when I finally cranked out five pages, which is a lot for me in one month.

Moving forward, I promised on this very blog that I’d draw no less than two pages per month, every month, until the book was finished. By the end of ’19 I’d kept my promise. Well, other than in November, when I barely managed one page because I’d committed to several writing assignments and a commissioned drawing for an upcoming gender health comic (more about that later, it’ll be out very soon). That was understandable, certainly. But here we are in mid-January and I feel as if I’m starting from scratch all over again. A vastly empty new page awaits.

First reason: my husband and I are moving again. This time we’re switching from our temporary experience of apartment life to being homeowners again. We’re buying a condo…in St. Paul! As we creep closer and closer to retirement age, a mortgage—aka an investment—sounds like a better plan than renting. We close in mid-March and move in April. So that’s taking up a lot of psychic energy and will soon be requiring no small measure of physical energy as well. How much I’ll feel up to drawing is an open question right now.

My natural work process is not always conducive. With long-form projects like Marry Me, I generally work page-by-page, not heavily scripting anything out very far in advance. This allows for on-the-fly, in-the-moment inspirations, which sounds very artistic doesn’t it, except that when you feel uninspired it is even harder to regain that momentum again. Apparently, I need a lot of revving up to get really revved up. When I’ve tried to script ahead of time it hasn’t generally worked too well.

Ever since I started this story, I’ve stopped tabling at festivals and expos, as I have no new books or comics to hawk. The longer I’ve been gone from it the farther away it all seems. I have no skin in that game right now and that is actually quite ok. But I very much want to have the finished Marry Me to sell at SPX and CAKE and the Twin Cities Book Festival! Someday…

So yeah, it’s 2020 now. We cartoonists and artists really like to talk about ourselves and how we’re doing and what we have accomplished and in the end it’s to little avail. I’ve come to the momentous realization that I’m going to get done what I’m going to get done when I get it done. I’ve seriously bored the hell out of myself going on and on about deadline angst and such and for those of you who stuck with me I thank you kindly. I hope I haven’t been too tiresome.

Ok then!

Leaving you with a panel from a recently finished page. See you soon!