Toon Be or Not Toon Be

I was talking to my friend Kerry recently, and we were discussing creativity. I was struggling with being overwhelmed by all the things I was doing, and my ever-growing list of creative projects. I tend to get overcome by all the choices and options of things I want to do, the result being nothing gets done. The main thing I was feeling, though, was guilt over not keeping up with drawing my comics. As long as I can remember I have wanted to be a cartoonist. I don't know how old I was when I scrawled the following comic on my dad's letter head, but it is just some thing I have always done, who I've always been.

The thing that came out of our conversation was a reminder of the cycle of creativity and the importance of following those creative urges. In the same way that I'm learning to follow my intuitive nudgings, I need to learn to follow the energy of creativity in whatever direction it takes me. Since starting this blog, most of my creativity went into writing. I find myself sometimes driven to write. It is creative expression and it feeds me. At other times I may feel the call to do something else -- a new lyric or line may occur to me and I am compelled to write poetry for a while. Sometimes I just...

But whatever I am drawn to do (hee-hee!) is what I need to be doing at that moment. There is no one looking over my shoulder saying I have to do such-and-such, or that I'm on a time limit to get certain things done. There is no agenda, or destination. It is perfect in every moment, whatever it is.

The trickiest part is that guilty feeling, when the wheel of creativity turns away from cartooning, as it inevitably does, just like the cycle of Life and Rebirth, retreating to be reborn anew. My mind tells me, "You're so bad! You're a cartoonist! That's your true vocation! When was the last time you drew anything?"

Some of these periods last longer than others. Through high school and college, my cartooning went through quite a long dry period, as it became less and less supported by a well-meaning family. Fortunately, for Christmas when I was 18 I received a guitar, and for some reason music was more acceptable than visual arts, so my creativity was channeled into being a singer/songwriter with dreams of The Grand Ole Opry. It was this creative expression, I believe, that kept my cartooning alive, dormant though it may have been. And almost exactly 10 years after I had laid down my last half-finished epic comic, I one day just picked it up and finished drawing it. I finished it in a totally different way than I had started it, but the flood gates had opened!

Through out that period, though, I was still filled with guilt, feeling I'd turned my back on my true calling and that I really should start doing something about it. Just the fact that I felt that way is proof that that part of me hadn't died, and with more hind sight I can say that, to be the cartoonist I wanted to be and draw the kind of comics I wanted to draw, I had to go through all those experiences.

Which brings me back to that conversation. Even now, when my creativity is being expressed in ways other than my comics, I need to relax and allow that. I am a multi-faceted person with many outlets, and like every other part of my life, I need to trust, and know, that I am always in the right place at the right time, and that the Universe is unfolding as it should. I always have been, and always will be a cartoonist, first and foremost no matter what else is going on or what else I am doing. It is my natural state of being.

By the way, "Drawing Breath" is what I call my comic because it is basically my journal in comic form.

With that all said, I have felt a renewed surge in creativity, and the call to draw again is undeniable. As I get ever closer of returning to center, of becoming and expressing more and more of my authentic self in every other area of my life, I can not, and will not, resist the tug of the activity that is closest to my heart -- The one thing in this world that makes me feel whole and fulfilled.

And so I have set myself a task. I have renewed my commitment to working on my comics at least a little bit every single day, whether it's just working on thumbnail sketches or inking a page to completion. I did this back when I was married (when I didn't have a social life) and it was quite rewarding. It was amazing how it felt to get into the groove, and how quickly my work built upon itself, like the whole thousand mile journey being completed by one step at a time. I'd suddenly look back and see how much ground I'd covered without even knowing it. This current commitment will last for a year and a day, to be renegotiated with myself at that point as to whether I will continue or not. The cool thing is, now that I have a laptop and a trusty scanner, I can actually keep track of my progress every day, even if that progress is just adding a couple lines to a page I've already started drawing. I can not wait to see what I have at the end of that year and a day.

For now, since I haven't drawn anything today and it being almost 1am on a school night, I'd better end this entry and get drawing!

I am a cartoonist. It's who I am. It's what I do ~