Sunday Morning Enthusiasm

One symptom of brain/body fatigue is the unleashing of inner demons. Last night when I was too pooped to produce I succumbed to the critical voices in my head, one of which scolds me when I'm not doing stuff. I suspect that inner voice lays dormant when I'm busy (either because I'm producing and thus rendering him/her/it unnecessary, or because the joy of productivity unleashes brain chemicals that neutralize him/her/it).

Either way, in hindsight I attribute my inactivity last night to simple fatigue. It's biochemistry and physics that prevent one from going 24/7. It's distorted cognitions that chastise, criticize, condemn, and berate such a condition calling it slothful and lazy.

This morning I'm refreshed and eager to tackle new and exciting endeavors. Where'd the inner critic go? I think a good night's sleep replenished my psychic energy and those shaming voices have been silenced. Or to change metaphors, during the dark night of the soul my inner critics shine brightly like stars but when my batteries get recharged the sun comes out and makes those stars invisible. (I hope someday to win a Pulitzer for mixed metaphors). The stars (critical voices) are still there but sunshine (psychic recharging) renders them invisible (silent).

After weeding the front yard I watched TV reruns, drank peppermint schnapps and hot cocoa, slept like a baby, and awoke with yesterday's ennui a distant memory. 


What lesson can I draw from this? When inevitable tiredness creeps up on me I will be mindful that in that weakened state I'm not only in need of downtime but I'm also vulnerable to a nasty sub-personality who would drive me to death and flog a dead horse. (Here comes that Pulitzer). When I'm exhausted that sub-personality is powerless to scold a tired body/brain into creativity. And since it can't whip my body into action it yells at me from the sidelines like a demented cheerleader, "Two, four, six, eight, who do we excoriate?" 


Off to have a great day! 

Ten Observations about Creativity and Distraction

Before launching a new blog where I'm posting the first rough draft to go public I wondered how that new endeavor might affect my creativity. Here's what I've learned.

1.  A significant portion of my brain is now hooked on feedback. Rather than blissfully creating with nary a care, I spend a considerable amount of time hoping for, anticipating, and wishing for feedback.

2.  Once I get that welcome feedback I then spend considerable time answering. Both wishing for and responding to feedback takes away from drawing.

3.  I also spend time integrating that feedback into the pages I've completed. That is, I'm now editing those first pages incorporating the great suggestions First Readers have offered. This too takes away time from penciling, inking, and posting that public rough draft.

4.  While I miss time away from drawing I must admit my ADD prone brain doesn't mind juggling all these disparate tasks. Part of the message of Ecclesiastes is that variety is the spice of life and engaging with the public over these doodles certainly adds variety.

5.  Knowing that I've now got followers on that other blog (I think about 10 of the 30 I invited) I feel additional motivation to keep on top of my self imposed posting schedule. I'm aiming for two posts per week. I'd like to do more but turning my latest rough draft into a printable rough draft is still agonizingly slow. I'm just trying to cram too much data (pencil layouts, character development, more tweaking of the dialog, inking, coloring) through too small a pipe (my brain).

6.  Posting this very rough draft feeds my sub personalities which are already prone to shame, embarrassment, and discouragement. The work in progress is a fool's errand. Each of the ingredients (humor, layout, facial expressions, section divisions, dialog, etc) are sub par and painful to read. Thus, a considerable amount of psychic time is spent fighting those self critical parts and pushing through the wall of resistance to accomplish the task at hand--illustrate the whole book of Ecclesiastes.

7.  I'm "forced" to continually dangle in front of my imagination the Platonic arch-type of a polished, finished, and honed final product. In my mind it "works." It's witty. It's unique. It's helpful. It's drawn to perfection. Readers get it. Theologians, philosophers, and depressed existentialists welcome it. This fantasy is shamed by reality--what I've posted so far falls way short of this ideal. It looks to me garish, confusing, halting, insipid, and the work of a deranged mind. Oh well. There is a perfect graphic novel based on Ecclesiastes in essence somewhere in the universe and my efforts will bring it into existence.

8.  I frame this psychic battle in positive terms. Moderating the internal debate builds character, strengthens synapses, and to be frank, is fun. Like the gambler whose dopamine neurotransmitters flow like Niagara when tossing dice, anticipating the finished product keeps my brain chemicals in a nearly constant state of mental bliss.

9.  Posting the rough draft reveals many new problems to be solved. How do I conquer the tedium of boring talking heads? How do I help readers distinguish one character from another? How do I color the thing so it looks pleasing and not so childish? How do I elevate the humor? Will the overall effect of student reactions bring clarity to readers' minds about matters of faith, existentialism, and suffering? When do I invite more First Readers? Should I invite more First Readers? These challenges distract me from the drawing task at hand but they are a pleasant distraction.

10.  Inviting a tiny slice of the public to evaluate these pages forces me to define success. If writing like Tina Fey is my goal, I've failed. If drawing like Herge is my goal, I've failed. If musing like Kierkegaard, Pascal, Dostoevsky is my goal, I've failed. If creating a work that goes viral is my goal, I've failed. If creating scenes, settings, and camera angles like Steven Spielberg is my goal, I've failed. If winning a Pulitzer like Art Spiegelman is my goal, I've failed. But if marshaling and merging dozens of tasks from my fevered brain to create a hefty existential comic book and having fun while doing so is my goal, I'm king of the hill, a gold medal winner, I get the yellow jersey, Heisman trophy, and lifetime membership in the hall of fame.

Musings on MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman

To break up the mind numbing tedium of tweaking panels and word balloons I gave my synapses a break and devoured Art Spiegelman's memoir of how he created the Pulitzer prizewinning graphic novel, Maus.

Here are comments I found most stimulating.

“…in making this kind of work, one has to inhabit and identify with each character. You have to act out their poses, you have to think them through…it is true that there is a kind of gestalting necessary just to be able to inhabit each character.” P. 35

I've written elsewhere about sub-personalities but this was a nice reminder that I am in my creation.

“I’d conceived of making some long comic book that needed a bookmark…and had to find something actually worth doing. I didn't have the stamina to devote myself to a one-hundred, two-hundred, three-hundred-page book just to serve up a lot of yucks or escapist melodrama.” P. 42

I relate. My work includes humor because "the sweetness of lips increases learning," (Proverbs). But humor isn't the point. My pictures and text will serve a greater purpose, simplifying one of history's most under appreciated existential texts.

“I guess I've always preferred research to writing or drawing.” P. 43

I'm doing hardly any research (other than arranging with a college professor friend of mine permission to take reference photos inside a large classroom). I'm making no trips to Poland or the New York Public library. 

“I remember a line from Shoah. A Jewish commander of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising says, ‘If you could lick my heart it would poison you.’ It indicates just how complete the absence of sunlight can be. To find a tone that could be informed by that bleakness and not be an inevitable prescription for suicide was difficult…To avoid that and still allow for the small moments that are what make a life worth living demanded a tone that I needed to find in Maus: how to avoid despair or cynicism without becoming fatuous. And Pavel’s discussion of what it means to soberly take stock of just how fucking meaningless everything is and what one nevertheless does from moment to moment was very useful for me—not just as a cartoonist, but as a model to aspire to.” P. 70

Dr. Q's bleak pessimism could inspire suicidal thoughts in the vulnerable, so my purpose is to validate his pessimism (if world affairs don't make you depressed you're not paying attention) while hoping to call attention to as Art says, what one nevertheless does from moment to moment. This is the existentialist challenge.

“In 2007 the Anne Frank House published a fictionalized color series of graphic novels specifically for an international teaching aid about the Holocaust. They’re very earnest and drawn in a pleasant Tin Tin style.” P. 127

Oh-oh. Tin Tin has been my inspiration. Looks like Ecclesiastes University will be drawn in a "pleasant" style.

“During that period of groping for a style, I also thought about cutting between the present and the past by having black and white line drawings intercut with gray wash drawings, or using full-color, which would have been way too decorative….” P. 145

And EU will be drawn in a decorative style! If the medium is the message, and the medium is pleasant and decorative, how will that "carry" the angst? The in-congruent juxtaposition may serve me well: an absurd linkage of pleasant decoration with philosophical nihilism may just be the absurd boost I'll need to pull this off.

More musings later.

Words, Pictures, Talent, and Creating People

Since beginning this graphic novel last December I continue to puzzle over several questions: am I creating a book with pictures or adding pictures to words? Do I have the time (not to mention talent) to pull this off? How does one create cartoon characters with subtlety, complexity, and depth?

Here are my musings about these questions so far (in order).

Scott McCloud and Wil Eisner have probably described the significance of words influencing drawings, drawings influencing words, and the interplay between them. Rather than read other's opinions on this subject, however, I'm learning by doing. Currently my words are only slightly influenced by my sketchy thumbnails, doodles, and drawings. Someday soon I hope my finished words will be improved as I add pictures.

Jodi Bergsma said in my last post (and I misquote), "I'm too busy writing to read books about writing." If I were 20 I'd make the time. But I'm in a race against the clock and am relying on 60 years of reading and drawing to carry the day. I read recently, "A picture is worth a thousand words, but try saying that in a picture."

In How We Decide author Jonah Leher made an interesting observation. The chess computer that beat Gary Kasporov was a terrible back gammon player, and the computer that beat the world's leading back gammon player would lose at chess. Leher's point? Unlike computers that can do one thing very well, the human brain can do lots and lots of things reasonably well. I take comfort in this. I can't write, cast, act, direct, design, philosophize, do theology or psychology, draw, or tell jokes like pros, but I can do each of those things somewhat. The combination of these tasks is what'll make this graphic novel unique.

Finally, isn't "complex cartoon characters" an oxymoron? As I create the actors in this fictional drama I must choose how many layers of personality to give each one. Currently I've divided the cast into many, many uni-(not di- or tri-) mensional characters. One character loves money, one loves jokes, one loves sex, and one loves Jesus. One loves social justice and one loves scientific materialism. One is a feminist and one is a gun toting vet. One is an aging hippy enthralled with conspiracies and drugs; another is pre-law. On and on the list goes. I'm showing no restraint in creating characters. It's actually quite easy. God used dust, I use ink.

My problem from a literary point of view: how many characters is too many? This is a graphic, not Russian, novel. I want readers to care about a few likable characters rather than feeling overwhelmed by dozens of them. The cast of FRIENDS had six main characters with dozens of secondaries. Can I do the same? As is, I've got hundreds of secondary but no main characters. Combining several disparate traits into one person adds complexity and realism; we've all got sub-personalities. But can those characters come to life with all their multiplicity, layers and conflicting desires in a comic book?

We'll just have to wait and see. The process is sheer bliss.

A Twinge of Nervousness

Skeptical about the existence of sub-personalities and neural multiplicity? Consider this:

Part of my brain despairs that this project is way beyond my capabilities. The task is immense and the convoluted worldviews of Ecclesiastes defy novelization (graphic or otherwise) by a pea brain like me.

At the same time, I am possessed of a grandiosity breathtaking in its scope. I read the following quote and got a jolt of fear.


It is mostly understandable (though to a cinema enthusiast like myself, bitterly disappointing) that Qoheleth has never been ‘filmed’ as such. His direct ‘filmability’ is an intriguing potential to reflect on (I see Ed Harris in the role, personally), but there are other senses in which he has been rendered in celluloid. (Eric Christianson, Ecclesiastes Through the Centuries, page 83).

I thought to myself with fear and trembling, "Good grief...somebody might beat me to it and make a film out of Ecclesiastes leaving me with reams of unpublished notes, unread blog posts, and unrealized dreams" (a very Ecclesiastes-like response, by the way). 

I'd love it if my 400+ page graphic novel could be rendered in celluloid. Whole films have been made in one location (Breakfast Club, 12 Angry Men, etc); couldn't a gifted cinematographer use my book as a story board for a movie taking place in a university classroom? If I had creative influence, credit, and a contract this would be a sweet deal. 

But what if, when I start posting my completed pages (ETA: next fall), some unscrupulous kid with a video camera rips off my idea? I am creating something highly amenable to Mr. Christianson's "intriguing potential."

These two disparate parts of my neural machinery fight each other, mock each other, and chide each other for their absurd optimism and pessimism. This is sub-personalities at work. 

PUBLIC NOTICE: I, Erik Johnson, do hereby self copyright, claim proprietary rights, and register as intellectual property of the following trademarked, registered, and personalized slogans, notions, and names: Mr. Q, Ecclesiastes U, Ecclesiastes University, and the plot of Ecclesiastes being spoken as a classroom lecture, and all characters to be depicted herein. (C) 2012, (R) 2012, (TM) 2012, (PKYHOMS*) 2012.

* Please keep your hands off my stuff.

Statistics

There are 12 chapters, 222 verses and roughly 5261 words in Ecclesiastes. I just completed creating text/dialog for chapter seven, the lengthiest chapter in the book. This means I've grappled with seven chapters, 143 verses, and 4064 words of Ecclesiastes so far. 

I've got five chapters, 79 verses, and 1197 words to go. Seeing progress is encouraging since the going is so slow. 

Chapter seven was the most difficult to transform into a classroom lecture. The content was random, repetitious, inconsistent with other chapters of Ecclesiastes, and very uncomplimentary to women. It provided good fodder for class reactions, but man, was it hard. Good thing I like a challenge.

Five more (shortish) chapters to go and then I get the delicious pleasure of giving the students names and character. (At this point all I have are word balloons with dialog but only rough ideas of who the students are). I'll also do thumb nail sketches, examine the grand arc to the narrative, and make many corrections to the dialog. 

I simply can't wait to see how this thing turns out. In his brilliant book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert says we are notorious for imagining futures that are way better than they are likely to be (a mistake Qoholeth was prone to  make). On this side of drawing I imagine a Pulitzer, Reuben, Golden Nosey, Mark Twain Award and even a Nobel or two, one for literature and the other for .... oh, I don't know, it doesn't matter. Let's say economics! Let's add appearances on Colbert and Piers Morgan. Grandiosity fuels my creativity. 

On the other hand, waves of self doubt plague me. I imagine this graphic novel will be a disaster and colossal waste of time. I feel like those singers on American Idol who think they're fabulous but can't carry a tune.

I actually relish this double-mindedness. Grandiosity keeps me energized;  insecurity keeps me real. Such are my creative musings today at the completion of a very difficult chapter. Onward!