Frustration.

[Funderbunk]

Why is it so hard for me to make something?

I plan and I plan and I plan, I write and I write, I design and I design and then...

I lose interest and start making something else.

I know this is all my own fault and problem, I just had to vent for a moment.

Thanks.

[Rob]

Vent ports open to maximum! 

Fight through it man.

[HarringtonAW]

In my experience, the main reason people don't see a project through to the finish is because they choose a project that is "good", not a project that's fun. We try to put out something that "people will like", as opposed to something that WE like. Since the concept doesn't excite us, but is supposed to excite some other people that we hope will read, we have a hard time maintaining interest in the concept.

I believe it was Bill Cosby who once advised a young comedian, "If it doesn't make YOU laugh, it's not funny". If a project isn't fun for you, it won't be that "good" anyway.

Imagine a comic that would be really exciting for you to read, one that includes everything that you like and always develops in the way you hope it would.

Now write one like that.

-S

[Funderbunk]

I know that syndrome, and I used to think that was it (I've had this problem for years, dagnabbit) but I've seen plenty of projects I didn't even like through to the end. It's the projects that I really love and want to do that give me problems.

I don't know what it is. It's like, I'm working on a concept that I'm really enthusiastic about... and I write scripts, design characters, plan locations... and then it's out of my system, and I start working on that "other idea" that always stewing in the back of my head.

I think I might even know what my problem is - I suspect on some level I just don't want other people to see my stuff. That's why I stop after I've told the story as far as *I* need it. What I don't understand if this is the case, is why? I always get really positive reactions to my work, and I've always been able to take criticism pretty well. I just don't get it.

[Rob]

Fear of success?

[Alectric]

Maybe you plan things out too much.  If you figure everything out beforehand, then carrying it out just becomes a chore since you already know what happens.  Any further work would be mostly for the audience's benefit, and not your own, which sort of ties in to the previous advice.

[Funderbunk]

Hm.

I hadn't looked at it that way.

[Largento]

This reminds me of the bit in the first Red Dwarf book where Arnold J. Rimmer spends so much time creating and updating timetables for studying that he never actually has time to do any studying. :-)

One thing that makes a difference to me is accepting that Rome wasn't built in a day. Taking on a huge project and thinking you can just barrel through and complete it in one long sprint won't work. You'll wear yourself out before you finish. The key is to do a little bit every day. That way you don't exhaust yourself, but also, you come to accept that what you are doing is a job that will take time. It has to be fueled by *will* ...not just passion. If you try to do it just on passion alone, your passion will run out long before you reach the end.

Planning is good, but there comes a point when you may just be stalling. It's up to you to figure out why.

Sometimes you just have to figure it out along the way. I've never written a story that didn't change somehow during the writing of it. Characters will surprise you and go left when you planned on them going right.

I read a book by a writer recently who likened the process to something he'd read in a book about Tennis. The book defined two parts of the brain. There's the part that's thinking "this is what I should do if he does that" and there's the part that just does it ...like an instinct. There's an aspect of writing that should let that second part be in control. The worst thing a writer can do is over-plan ...because at some point, it's going to feel forced and the audience is going to be taken out of the story by it. When you instinctively know that your character would go left and you force him to go right just because the plan requires it, you destroy whatever reality you've created for the reader.

To me, all creative endeavors require problem-solving skills ...but you can't solve every problem before it happens. You have to have an idea of where you're going, then go on the journey and solve the problems *as* they happen.

To me, that's the most exciting part. That's when I'm just sitting back and watching the story happen in front of me.

[HarringtonAW]

Also, try writing some shorter simpler stuff. It's a lot easier to commit to finishing a project if it isn't going to take a year of your life or something to get there.

-S

[Rob]

I endorse Largento's product and or service. 

[Funderbunk]

Always helps to get a new perspective, I think I might be able to do something with this. Thanks! 

[Gibson]

There's also the possibility that comics isn't something you really want to do. I've known a lot, and met a lot more recently, who love the idea of making comics and being someone who makes comics, but sitting down to make them never actualizes because the process of it doesn't appeal to them. I spoke on a number of panels at a con this weekend and one of the things we repeated more than once was that there is a difference between loving comics and loving making comics, and that you had to love making them. Otherwise, why make them? I didn't make comics for several years because I had lost the love of them, and it took finding a project that I couldn't get out of my head to bring me back to them. If doing comics isn't working, try not doing them.

[Funderbunk]

That makes sense, but isn't the case here. When I actually stay interested long enough to get to making the comic (or film, animation, song, script or novella or whichever thing has caught my interest at the time) the making is the part I love most.

It's just... well, for example, when I've written the script for a short film... I've got the story out of my system and I can't wait to move on to the next story, y'know? I dunno, maybe I'm just screwed up. Maybe I should just give myself a kick in the keister and FOCUS. It doesn't help that I have the attention span of a goldfish.

[Gar]

If doing comics isn't working, try not doing them.

I quit Neko for quite a while because I'd lost interest, but then when I came back to it I realised how much I'd missed it, and now I'm two years in with twice-weekly updates and still loving it. Not entirely what Gibson meant, but it's one way it can apply.

Funderbunk - a Troy McLure line just popped into my head "I've been reading a lot of scripts lately... it's a lot cheaper than actually going to the movies". Sounds like your able to get scripts done but lose interest in the more time-consuming production stages (drawing a comic, shooting and editing a film).

Maybe you just need to find an artist you can work with so you can play to your own strengths?

[Funderbunk]

I've tried both that, and also the other way around (drawing for someone else), but the former failed because I am the worst control freak and the latter failed because I lost interest due to not having an emotional interest in the story. Haha. And now it's starting to feel like I have an excuse for everything that actually gets me doing anything - maybe I do have some fear of failure or something.

I've actually been thinking about it a lot lately and I think one of the reasons I'm having problems is because I'm, well, for lack of better word, multi-instrumentalist. I come up with concepts, but I never really come to terms with whether I want it to be a short film, a comic, an animation, a script, a novel, bweaargh.