I’ve mentioned my upcoming webcomic several times in the past year. And each time it’s had to be put back by another month.
I moved home partly to be able to lower my cost of living, but also because that new home had enough space to give me a small woodworking workshop. Why does that matter? Because I’ve spent the past year designing my ideal ukuleles. I want to build them for myself, and perhaps some day to sell to other. Again delayed.
My video blog which started last month was another project which had been stalled again, and again.
Even this written blog started out as a project which had been put off over, and over.
That’s the thing about large projects, they tend to need fairly substantial preparation time before you can get into the meat of them. And life will often get in the way. At best this is frustrating, at worst it’s beyond infuriating.
My two worst current bug-bears in this regard are my webcomic, and my video blog. My webcomic is a project with 2 years of work already done on it, without a single panel having found its way on to the internet. I’ve spent months working on my drawing skills, working out characters, storylines, learning to use graphics programs, etc. It’s a lot of work to have already done with nothing solid to show for it. Why nothing to show for it? I’m doing the ground work for a new novel at the moment, which is rather time intensive, so until that’s done, and I get back to my regular writing schedule I’m buggered for time.
As for my video blog, it has admittedly been launched. But even after another month, and 40 hours of work over that time because of financial issues it still won’t have grown to what I had hoped it would be when I release my second edition next week.
Both of those projects are not precisely stalled, but they are being held back in different ways by life in general. The webcomic by my mad dash to clear a backlog of other work so I can finally set aside so much time per week purely for drawing. The video blog by my income having been savaged in the past two months reducing my discretionary budget from tiny to almost nothing. And it’s driving me nuts.
I have a story I want to tell, a story I’m excited by, enthusiastic about; the webcomic.
I also have things I want to say to the world, things I want the world to hear from my lips, not read from a page; the video blog.
But despite my hard work. Despite my enthusiasm. Despite how much love I have for both projects I am stalled. I drink not from the keg of victory, rather I’m stuck in the corner of the bar, and the barman just pawned me off with the dregs from last nights run off. And I am not happy about that.
Now that said I know I will get to where I want to be. My webcomic is going to be launched, come hell or high-water. My video blog will develop from a “talking head” model to the more magazine show format I want for it, just more slowly. So I’m not frustrated by things which will never happen. I guess that I’m simply irked by having run so hard and fast, just to stay where I am.
Here endeth the bitching, and moaning with a question. How do you deal with this particular sort of getting nowhere? And what mechanisms have you used in your own life to get through it.
