What They (whoever they are) Don't Tell You about Creativity

Creativity isn't all bolts of insight. There are hours of tedium. I've spent the weekend changing fonts and font sizes. There has been lots of mouse clicking.

Once the font is correct I rearrange the text boxes in each panel. I'm finicky that the boxes be uniform, aligned 3/16s of an inch from the top of the panel, and centered.  There has been lots of mouse rolling around.

Between hours of tedium I tried in vain (apropos of Ecclesiastes) trying to download audio books from the library and then from iTunes. I also spent three hours trying to figure out if Publisher allows me to link text boxes and change them all at once. I'm actually pretty sure it can be done but I failed to crack the code. It has to do with Font Schemes and Style and Formatting. Failing these techy tasks I return to the tedium of tweaking thousands of boxes. I'm up to page 168 (there are 428 pages).

I want to maximize the drawing space in each panel so this means shrinking the text boxes as much as possible. I thus edit like crazy. One line is best, two better, three = max. Text boxes with four or more lines are the exception. 

Consumers of this project will never know (unless they read this blog) what goes on behind the scenes. I'm making mental notes for where breaks occur, what the panel arrangements will be, and what the characters look like. Because character coherence isn't on the top of my to do list at present I store that (and 100 other) tasks in my brain along with other random questions:

1. Will readers think the author (me) was angry? I don't feel angry.
2. Is this graphic novel a subconscious reaction to living alone? I don't feel lonely.
3. Is it true when Ecclesiastes says envy motivates all toil? I don't feel envious. 
4. Are students' reactions to Dr. Q legitimately funny or just snarky on my part? I don't feel snarky. 
5. After editing a joke five times it loses it's edge. I imagine future readers laughing. But I don't feel funny. 
6. Where can I put this quote, "Ecclesiastes University sardonically skewers the Dostoevskian sense of despair and anxiety that faith in a scientific world creates."