The new thing to report in this memoir about creating a graphic novel is, "Tedium is a type of creativity." I'm up to page 324 of editing word balloons. After the first hour of mind numbing click and drag, my mind finds ways to engage itself. It's almost like meditation. I haven't had a job with repetitive motions in 40 years so I'm unaccustomed to looking for things to keep my bored mind busy while my hands do the work.
But at this stage in spiffing up Draft Three I treat each page as a stand alone work of art. The content and position of the word balloons is as important as the (still to come) drawings. 428 pages sounds cumbersome and beyond realistic for a graphic novel. But I embrace each of those 428 pages as (listing as many metaphors as I can) a link in a chain, brick in a wall, cell in a living being, tiny scoop of dirt while tunneling under prison walls, and cog on a wheel. In short, rather than dialing down my mental expectations I elevate the work I'm doing. Tedium forces me to turn mundane tasks into significant parts of the larger whole.
Aphorism of the day: if you feel like a cog on a wheel either resign yourself to lowly cog-dom or remind yourself of the importance of the wheel.
Okay, back to clicking and dragging.....
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