Every cartoonist has a part of the process that they find the most difficult. For me, and many others, its the actual writing part. Compounded with my ADHD, full time job, drawing to keep my skills and portfolio sharp, running a side business because “This Economy”…it’s a struggle.
I am terrified of that blank, bright white, google doc page. It’s as if my brain has a plug in it when I try to write. I have a lot of different techniques for how I get around this, things like a physical board of post it notes to help me move plot points around, a miro board of the same thing, writing whatever scenes that come to mind instead of just writing it from start to finish, having a “brain blast” with my husband, and talking it over with my best friend who is a brilliant writer.
To write, the atmosphere needs to be in the goldilocks zone. Isolated in a room, lo-fi music playing in my noise canceling headphones, locking myself out of other apps (or now I use my Traveler, hashtag not spon) and of course, no ADHD recipe would be complete without procrastination and pressure of a deadline. It’s as if my brain says “you can wait until you only have a month, don’t worry about a thing.”
And lets not even talk about how to write an ENDING. That’s an email on it’s own.
I’m trying hard to get out of that, it’s difficult. Even writing this email is hard, I’ve gotten distracted about 5 times already (again, that you to my Traveler for helping with this!). I keep coming up with excuses to not send it or complete it! “I don’t have a comic to send with it, I can’t write it yet.” “Is anyone even going to read it?” “It’s just a ramble anyway.”
But in an effort to push myself into writing more, here is my entry. And if you made it this far, thanks dude, I appreciate you.
If you struggle with writing and getting yourself to write, I’d love to hear your tips and tricks!