Alcatraz High - Why is it that I can’t bring myself to work on my comic?

 Alcatraz High - Why is it that I can’t bring myself to work on my comic?

1. Motivation cannot overcome conditioning. Whenever I am able to drum up an ounce of motivation, it comes out like a gasp, and ceases, replaced with nihilism, all the reasons my mind can come up with for why working on it is pointless. I’m standing in my own way, and I know it. I need discipline more than I need motivation. There are many external difficulties in my life, but those aren’t excuses for not working on it. I have the time, I have the means. I started the comic when I felt like I was at a very low point in my life, but somehow I still did it. How I managed to churn out two pages a week seems like a mystery to me now. Working on it feels daunting. Drawing and writing feels more like work than fun. I suppose one reason it started to take longer to do a page is that it’s not like drawing a simple four panel comic like Peanuts or Garfield; as I got better at art I became more of a perfectionist, so it became one page a week, then two a month, then…less, as I became burned out.

2. I fell out of love with the plot. If this were a novel I would probably go back and delete and rewrite a lot of things, but with a comic that’s already out there, it’s a lot more  difficult to go back and change anything, especially any drastic changes. I don’t feel like having to redraw entire pages. I’m not feeling the current chapter. I kind of want to get back to it being a semi-autobiographical comic about how terrible public school is, the supernatural stuff is fun but has taken over the plot a little too much. I might just jump into the next episode and finish the current chapter later…once I feel like starting again that is.

3. I used to tell myself I was okay if my audience was only 5-10 people. I had already accepted that I wasn’t ever going to get rich off a webcomic. And the numbers remained more or less the same as I went on for five years. I don’t like marketing myself. I actually tried my best to market myself in the beginning. I posted on several websites, I had a Patreon. But, it never felt like it went anywhere, despite trying for years. And it felt like all I was getting in return for this work was Facebook likes. It feels strictly performative. I thought my expectations were low, but not low enough apparently. Although my talents are being replaced by AI now, which also plays a role in my being unmotivated, it’s not like I was making a living on my art before either, so I really shouldn’t let that discourage me. There’s still the fact that I’m not getting much in return for my art, and any fraction of a percent of a chance I had at making money off my art has effectively been brought down to zero. Doing art will not support my actual survival, so it gets lowered on the list of priorities. But is survival worth it if you stay in stagnation?

Still, I don’t want to quit working on it. I feel guilty for not working on it, but the guilt isn’t transforming into motivation, it’s only eroding my self-esteem. I know the clock is always ticking and I’m not immortal, but this doesn’t translate into motivation either. I wish it didn’t take some major deconstruction and rebuilding of my psyche to get me working on it again but it seems like it will. What is it in me that is afraid of change and growth? Whatever it is in the shadow of my psyche standing in the way of my creativity, I need to confront and defeat it. Knowing what I need to do and actually doing it are two very different things.