#sorry if this was just a rant post and you werent actually looking for answers

[chimericchaos]

This is absolutely true but i do feel it in all areas, whether it is writing or drawing or anything creative, we tend to judge and predetermine our work by others' abilities and what else is in the field/market/economy/space. This is why you shouldnt compare your work to others and just let your brain do what it wants.

But also no. Honey you do not need to have really any thought when writing. If all drawing is putting lines on a page, then all writing is putting imagined scenarios into words. You dont need to really think about it, at least not at first. Write whatever silly thing you feel like writing down and if you feel like it needs more, then add more layers to it. My example, i started my wip in grade 7. I had no clue what a "theme" was then, or how to "create tension" or "flow" in the lines. I didnt care. Heres this one guy, he can shoot lazerbeams like goku. He can fly. Yeah no one knows how it works it just does.

But as time went on and i finished and refinished and refinished planning out the bare bones of the series, i started adding little bits that just *made sense*. Yes his hero friend is also now a tragic love interest. He can also see throughout all of space and time. Yes he did know that the hero would die *and in fact he knew but still chose to love anyway*. Yes he wrote a song lamenting hero's death before hero was even born because he has been around for aeons.

And oh yes, the hero who died, he didnt. And also he did, but didnt. You see, it was an evil clone of him that fused with the other three of the four horsemen of apocalypse, who blackened his name while he was being held captive in a stasis chamber by the evil corporation. But actually no he also did die, because his Self, his consciousness, died and manifested in the collective unconscious which is an alternate plane of reality that has a sea of blood that is a metaphor for war and all the conflict that occurred since the First Kalpa. There hero manifests in the blood sea and he swims to what he thinks is God but is actually a giant golden tree that "pushed away the Nothing" and therefore keeps the sun-moon from crashing into the collective unconscious. Thanatos shows up and is absolutely puzzled why hero has manifested here and not in the underworld, a sub-plane of the collective unconscious, because the blood sea only really manifests gods. This is but a small taste of the horror that is to come.

And the magic system wasnt a thing when i started. You recall he shooted lazer beams. Blue lazerbeams. It was just like that. There was no rhyme or reason to it, no elemental magic sytem. But now it turns out that there is. Its a weird elemental-colour-emotion magic system that has about 16 different schools of magic that originated in the collective unconscious with the coloured waters that create everything there is. Blue is the colour of water, of sadness, of knowledge. He has gained and wielded knowledge as a weapon since his first fight, and now his powers reflect that. But that also connects to the fact that he is The Oracle, or at least contains the spirit of her, because multiple gods/concepts/ideologies can be born into a single body, and YES this Oracle is aware that the real hero consciousness died and was replaced with a 2-dimensional hero of Order, and she does try to alert the rest of the team to this. And the love interest knows this too, he always has.

Anyway long story short, what was a funny little doodle on my brain has become a way-too-complicated story about What It Means To Live. And fuck capitalism. So yeah the point is dont worry about what things are now. Everything grows with time, and if you find yourself coming back to this little doodle you can add layers onto it until it becomes something. Start with little notes and a summary. Come back to it later. Sketch a few lines of dialogue, however cringe it may sound at first, youll fix it up later.

You dont have to have the intent to write a story that changes the world. If you choose to keep coming back to it, or if it knaws in your brain enough, eventually it will become that, and you probably wont realize it has until you read over it a few times. Like magic.

Sucks that with art I feel like I can just get silly with it and it'll be fine if I'm messy. I just draw silly little guys and its fine... but if I try to even go near writing- or heaven forbid poetry, I feel like It needs to be thought out 3 years in advance with atleast 4 motifs related to the bakers of the byzantine empire and the syllabic structure of an enlightened Hamlet.

Can poetry just feel fun and silly?? And not make me feel like I have to change the world within 17 syllables????

[cynicjovial]

I found your thought about your own art on the personal post tag. You said you werent happy with what you draw but you still like drawing. In this statement, there is something negative, but a HUGE positive! This means that every "wrong" drawing won't terminate your will to draw, and that's ideal. Now; when i read those confessions and saw your drawing, i noticed that you don't seem... secure in what you draw? (1/2)

I want to respond to this to at least notify you that I have acknowledged it.

I understand what you are saying and know what you are talking about, but I still have problems to apply that to myself also due to the fact that it still a little too vague to me in some points. Which drawings are the ones that feel insecure? Do my washi tape drawings look too safe? Can you make an example on one of my oil pastel piece to explain "moving in many directions"? It just... says a lot and nothing to me, maybe other people can get this immediately, but I can only look at my drawings and trying to figure out what is that other people see as wrong (not counting stuff like anatomy or skill errors) I know my last drawings are all same-y as I got a new set of gel pens and I'm having fun coloring with them but this is another thing. Most of the time making a picture is not putting my feelings down, is to try and replicate the image in my head because I wanna see it and it makes me happy. What I want to do artistically is to being able to make something and go "yep, this is nice and close to my vision!" I feel like what I'm doing already is going off with my feelings. I do vent art. I do tired doodles. Maybe my problem is not doing that enough and not posting everything on my social media. Idk I agree I do circle around my safe zone but it feels like to me and you whats that to me are two different ones.

This is one of my last "drawings" I did from exhaustion due to stress. I didn't want to draw but I forced myself to do it because I hadnt been drawing in days (you can tell by my latest posting schedule too). Maybe people want to see that and appreciate this kind of art more of the ones I'm actually proud of, I don't know, but making more of this would mean I'd have to feel miserable, and I'm terrified of the thought that I have to stop training in a certain way or ditch a type of drawing that I like doing because it's "not for me" or because I'm wasting my potential. Maybe Im too sensitive about this because years ago a group of friends told me why make pretty drawings when you should focus on making funny ones instead. it was a nice way to say "you're not talented enough to be on our drawing level but you are funny so you should stick to that instead of thinking of becoming an illustrator" and I know it was supposed to be a compliment but it's not to me. You are right I am insecure, about a lot of other stuff too

Is this a good piece or is it too all over the place? What is unleashing the process? Like I said at the start it's just not specific enough for me to understand the problem, I get the solution you're suggesting but not what am I supposed to recover from. My main problem I think that I don't get enough time to draw both what I should be doing and what I would like to do, and I know that makes my improvement very slow, and I think so that what you're trying to say is instead of trying to strengthen my weak points I should exploit more my stronger ones. And this is why I have issues understanding how not to "play it safe" I believe

I know this is a long rant but this made me think of my last drawings (and well that vent was like from march iirc) and my art in general and there is not a simple way to answer to this without bringing up my confusion. Maybe I'm also too detached to my feelings and the audience can see more than I do. I really don't know, sorry. But as for lately I'm liking what I'm drawing despite knowing that I can do better. I don't have the time to stress over it. I just wanna be happy.