Here's a challenge: Write only things you know firsthand.
For as long as I can remember I've lived in the same town. I love it here. It's a beautiful place, with some lovely people around. In high school, whenever a friend would talk about how much they couldn't wait to move out of here, I couldn't understand. I wanted to live here as long as I could.
When I was about to go to college I was worried I wouldn't be able to find the thing that I was meant to do. My high school was supposed to be one of the best ones in the state. I didn't think I thought I knew everything, but I couldn't imagine what career paths could be out there that I hadn't already heard of in school. I guess I didn't know what I didn't know.
When I got to college I signed up to be a DJ at the school radio station. Before I actually did it, I never considered it a thing I could possibly do. For the first time, I had a "job" I was actually excited to do. It's definitely not "my passion," but god dammit, it's something I like! And if I hadn't left my home town I would never have found out I could do it.
When I came back home, I became acutely aware of how much routine governed my life here. Doing x, y and z every day just because I'm used to it, not because I want to do these things. It feels comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. At the same hour almost every day you feel a terrible, terrible restlessness! A "God, what am I doing?!?" But even as you ask yourself what the other options are, you balk at the idea of leaving your house and facing the bright, loud, unpredictable and less-than-cushiony world.
I still think I'd like to live in this very same town as long as I can. But I understand now that this place is only one town; only so many square miles of a whole world covered and teeming with secrets, things you don't even know you don't know (yes, there are things you know you don't know, like people's names, the stories they might know, what lies on the other side of the river... but there are also things you don't know that you haven't even considered might exist!).
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I'm not really sure what I should do with this website. Part of me wants to upload comics. Part of me wants to log all my art projects. Part of me wants to format the website like a book or series of zines. I don't particularly like looking at other people's websites when they do stuff like this. But also, why should I care if my website is enjoyable for other people? Isn't it just for myself?
I have a lot of stuff in my sketchbook that I think other people would enjoy. The problem is deciding what things to share and what things to keep to myself.
Should I keep doing cuttlefish comics? Or fishboy comics? Should I keep making comics at all?
What should I do with the front page of the site? Make it nice and graphic-y? The first page in a linear series? Or a site map? This is like decorating my room. I want everything, but I hate clutter. Can I tell you something funny? When I moved in to my dorm room, I was afraid to put any posters or decorations on the wall because I worried a) I would get distracted from my work looking at the nice pictures and b) I would get stressed out from looking at a surface with details on it. Too much! Too much to look at! Now I'm back home with my over-decorated wall that I wish I could start over on, but without getting rid of all the nice things I've put up on it. If I take down my shark poster and high school artwork and post-it notes from the wall, where will I put them???
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Over the past few weeks (this is several months after writing the previous passage here), I've effectively Marie-Kondo'd my childhood bedroom, to some extent. I read in a secondary source that she says you mustn't just put the things that don't spark joy in storage, you've got to get them all the way out of your life. This is very difficult for me not only because I'm attached to all this stuff right now, but because I'm always looking forward to that hypothetical moment years and years from now when I dig my old stuff up out of storage and get transported back to the olden days. It happens now, when I go through the drawings and letters I've kept from middle and high school. I thought so much differently back then than I do now-- this was in the days of random XD humor and lots of rainbows and unicorns in the general zeitgeist, let alone the fact that I was 11. I look at these things and wonder at the childlike wonder and enthusiasm and imagination that went into them. Wonder and enthusiasm and imagination, I depressedly think to myself, are muscles I haven't exercised in a long time. Finding these things and getting transported back to their times reminds me of the perspectives I've lost as I've gotten older, learned, and at the same time forgotten, so much. They give me reassurance that the world is not all gray, there's still a rainbow of color out there if I'm only willing to see it. And basically, my fear is that if I get rid of old stuff, I will forget the way I used to think. I feel like the guy in Memento, a movie I never actually watched, but still. I feel like the guy in Memento. So I put a bunch (but not all!) of my "discard" pile into a box and put the box under my bed. Clutter: out of sight. Memories: preserved. Unicorns: farting rainbows. Buen trabajo, gente.
As winter and its discontents set in, I see myself making more comics. I feel inspired. I was watching this clip of an interview with some of the writers of "Seinfeld," and they said that during the time of the show, whenever they embarrassed themselves in public, it didn't feel so bad because they knew it could be used as inspiration for an episode. That made me think of making comics. I have a feeling this year is going to be wacky in terms of exploring how social interactions work. I'm primed to embarrass myself, and I'm interacting with some pretty interesting characters on a daily basis. I'm hoping it will be fuel for something fun, or at the very least, EXPRESSIVE! Only time will tell how much I'm willing to post online. Fasten your seatbelts, esteemed guests, and enjoy the cringe reel.