Oh man, guys, I really like this book I’ve written.
I had to reread that because I have never seen a writer say that ever and as a writer I envy you.
WHAT
There are so many comments on this post to this effect.
Dude! writers, artists, do what you need to do to gain objectivity and feel satisfaction for what you’ve done!
Art as pain and pain as art and the Eternal Dissatisfaction of the Poignant Creator™ is so 19th century.
Creating the art you wish you could see in the world but don’t, and then being fucking PSYCHED when you’ve done it™ is very 2018.
My love for this post tripled when I noticed who the op is.
Holy shit thats Maggie stiefvater
Tag: life
Zen Pencil Comics: 89. STEPHEN FRY: Ultimate self-help book
Honestly, if I had written that book I would have written the same thing. It really is a matter of just stopping the self hate. It’s not easy, I know. Believe me, I know more than I would like to. I’ve dealt with depression since 5th grade and have been in and out of therapy, on and off various medications and such for years and years. For a good chunk of my childhood and teen years I was depressed and full of self pity. Sometime during college I failed a semester because I was having so many issues with depression.
I woke up and really looked at my life. I saw that all I was doing was laying around feeling sorry for myself. I would look at my life and art and hate it and I would drag all my friends into my little spiral of self loathing. I sort of had a moment where I was just like what the hell am I doing? I’m wasting so much time and so much of my life just sitting around feeling sorry for myself. So I started working towards putting an end to that frame of mind.
It was really hard and I did have to cut a few people and other influences from my life that were making me so negative. And to this day I still have troubles here and there (we’re only human), but for the most part I conquered it.
When I see people I know that do nothing but lay around and feel sorry for themselves, I try to be supportive but I also try to be realistic. If someone’s depressed you should totally be there for them. But if they’re stuck in a cycle of hating themselves and what they do, do your best to put a stop to it. Obviously you can’t just make someone go “welp, time to feel better about myself”, as ultimately that person has to have the courage to tackle the problem. But don’t be an enabler. Help them get out of the house or be productive because that’s far better than just allowing them to lay around being depressed. Just sitting around them being all “of course you don’t suck, of course you’re great” is more harmful than helpful.
We are what we spend our time with. And if we spend our time thinking about how life sucks, our life is just going to suck.
I noticed a sudden surge of “is it okay to draw fanart??” pop up on my tumblr dash and, well- being someone who has been creating original works for years and who also draws fanart, I figured I’d toss in my two cents.
Drawing fanart is just another form of love. You love something enough to want to take part in it. There’s no shame in that.
Shows, games, comics, movies, etc. don’t just pop up out of thin air. I think a lot of Original Properties creators tend to forget that, on a much larger scale, fandoms have formed around someone else’s original ideas. You wouldn’t hate someone for drawing fanart of your characters, would you?
So take a seat, relax, and if you don’t like something- then don’t look. Common sense. More importantly, don’t let anyone else tell you that you can’t enjoy something just because they don’t share the same interest.
<3 -Del