Balancing The Work and ... Everything Else
We don't create in a vacuum. (The lack of oxygen alone would be deadly.) Many of us have other jobs. Most of us have friends. We may have spouses, girl/boyfriends, children, and/or indefinable other people we live with. Some of us even have other interests. These things take us away from comics. Comics take us away from them.
How do you manage this? Do you have a daily routine that allocates time to each of these? Something on the weekly level? Do you successfully wing it? Or unsuccessfully? What works for you? What tips do you have for juggling the conflicting demands of Doing The Work and Getting A Life? When push comes to shove, which wins?
How do you manage this? Do you have a daily routine that allocates time to each of these? Something on the weekly level? Do you successfully wing it? Or unsuccessfully? What works for you? What tips do you have for juggling the conflicting demands of Doing The Work and Getting A Life? When push comes to shove, which wins?
Comments
Life is balance. If all you do is make comics, you're the Unabomber. You need experience to make good art. Go get some.
But on the flip side I know what Russell is saying because when I fall off the page quota wagon then there is NO forgiveness. Time doesn't stop for me to catch up again. Then I'm working all through the night and the schedule will crash into another schedule and so on.
So again, it is about the balance. But I like the *certainty* behind a daily page ratio, otherwise it just feels like fun and less of a job. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE what I do, but I want to be professional at it... not just ramble about on an adventure chock full of serendipity.
I want to treat my art like any day job where I go to the office, work, then cone home (and sometimes take my work home with me). Hahah!
That said, I don't have much of a life, as such, which is down to me living in the middle of nowhere.
I have a standard crappy day job. I also have two housemates who expect at least a little of my time every day (one of them more than the other), if nothing else because we usually eat the same dinner (if not always together). Lately this has been a challenge, because dinner tends to happen with the TV playing something worth watching (recently streaming Breaking Bad, Skins). I sometimes try to juggle eating, watching, and drawing ... and fail epicly at that.
Rather than daily goals, my approach falls more into Russell's model, of just scheduling time for it. I try to Do The Work over my lunch breaks, which is more successful than working at home in the evening/weekends. But lunch breaks often get overtaken by errands, catching up online, or The Job. I usually stop at the Y on the way home from work, which means dinner is later in the evening, and also cuts down on Work time at home. But that's the compromise I make. I tried scheduling time in the morning before work to DTW, but... it didn't work.
I have one Friend I Don't Live With who I get together with pretty consistently one night a week. Which fucks with everything else in my daily routine that day, but that's probably a good thing. I hardly ever "go out" like I used to in bygone days, but that's as much about getting older as anything else.
But boy am I taking notes on what everyone else is saying on here!
1) A day job that typically requires 50+ hours a week
2) Planning a wedding
3) Managing an active social life, even if it's just hanging out with the finance
4) Trying to get consistent and quality comic work done
5) Fending off my cat, who is constantly battling my laptop for attention / domination of my lap
6) Trying to get some exercise so I don't die in my 80s....
I do this through scheduling, and setting goals. Most people talk about setting a period of time aside each night to focus on writing, and I agree this is a great idea - especially if you have regular, consistent hours. I don't, so I try to make weekly page goals.
Currently I'm playing catch up to last week's goals (2.5 more pages to go and I'm caught up), and these goals are always realistic. I need to consistently put out a number of pages because I'm launching a webcomic series, and I need to keep feeding content to my artist to keep him busy. If I set 2 hours aside per night, I might get through a single scripted page, I might get through 5 scripted pages - but the fact of the matter is, I need to produce a minimum of 5 scripted pages per week -10 would be better - so I can stay ahead of my artist.
Thankfully, I was also 2 full scripted issues ahead of him before he started, so I have a little bit of buffer. However, he works a lot faster than I do - because his day job IS making comics. He has more time to devote to the work because that's his primary income. I'm not in a place to be able to do that yet - but it's the dream, of course, to be there one day.
I think the theme here is make a goal and stick to it. Make time to do the work, whether it's setting time aside every night or trying to maintain a regular page count. Do what works best for you, keeps you motivated, and keeps you producing regular work.
the day job allows for a ton of vacation time. So I take a day off at least 2-3 times a month. Sometimes I take a week. This day off is me working from 8-5 with about 15 minutes for lunch. I can get ALOT done in that time. When I get going on artwork, I don't look at emails or the internet. I'm locked in because I know this time is precious.
I also set goals for each month. Working on a 150 page monster for the last year, I would tell myself, I need to pencil or ink at least 17 pages this month. Sometimes the goal is lofty and it's 20 pages. I keep my goals realistic, and I'd say 90% of the time I meet them or exceed them.
I go to bed around 9:30 every night. I can't work when I'm sleepy. I need 7 hours. I can still fit in the work. I'm on month 16 of working on DISPLACED PERSONS. In that time I've penciled 150 pages, inked 134, colored and lettered about 22(?). Not rocket speed, but I feel it's been my most productive stint I've had in my artistic career.
What is this "balance" you speak of?
That which prevents a disturbance in the Force?