DOING THE WORK // 10.24.02

WIREDOFCOURSEIMNOTWIREDWHYD'YOUASK?
By Harris O'Malley

I am incredibly high right now.

That did not come out right.

I perhaps I should back up and provide context.

I am incredibly wired to the gills right now.

I haven't slept in about four days and I'm fairly sure those are my brains leaking out of my ears. Now, I'm something of an insomniac by nature, but this is different. Most of the time, I am physically tired, but can't actually get to sleep. This time I haven't yawned in days. My heart is currently keeping time with a Ministry of Sound collection and I'm fairly sure the jabbering voices at the periphery of my hearing are just the lyrics to a Timo Maas remix.

I'm not going insane, really I'm not.

I should probably back up further.

Like I mentioned in my last entry, the current issue of BETWEEN THE CRACKS is proving more difficult than normal; maybe it's because "Still Waters" has a different tone than "The Bride" or KNIGHTS OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS and I can't switch gears quite as easily as I thought. Or perhaps it's because I'm trying to adapt a story I originally wrote as prose and I'm not used to trying to match the flow of prose to the flow of sequential graphics.

I can't complain though. It got me free cookies. In fact, if the rather talented Wendi Strang-Frost (artist on the mini-comic series JOHNNY PUBLIC, which you really owe it to yourselves to read) isn't careful, I'm going to be finding that my artist's blockage roughly coincides with her baking schedule.

Getting back to the point here.

I have been making progress. Slow, somewhat torturous progress that's somewhat akin to pulling teeth, but it's progress none the less. Until, of course, I fell victim to my own nature and made the mistake of telling a friend of mine that I thought I might actually get it done before I moved.

In retrospect, I could have just stood on a mountain and yelled "GOD'S GOT LOUSY AIM!" Two days later, I'm in the doctor's office and I've just heard two words that I never like hearing from my doctor: "Oh. My."

For some obscure reason, I get tonsillitis the way other people get Yu-Gi-Oh cards; if I go for four months and only get it once, it's a reason for celebration. Now I've not only come down with it, but I have some random viral infection on top of it. If things progress apace, I should probably expect to grow a singing tumor the next time.

So, in addition to the usual round of antibiotics, I get a steroid that I won't bother to attempt to spell properly, and I'm completely and totally wired. Hyper as a ten year old child with a Red Bull in one hand and one of those of GodPhallus-sized Pixie Stix in the other. I have a hard time concentrating on anything for more than twenty minutes at a time. And I haven't slept in four days.

This has been, rather suprisingly, a Good Thing™.

If there is one thing any creative person can tell you, it's that every artist is his or her own worst critic; there's always, always that little voice in the back of your head that's pointing out all the flaws in everything you're doing and generally making the case as to why you can't do it. It's depressing, it's pernicious and it's hard as hell to drown it out at times.

Despite the fact that I haven't actually been able to sleep, my brain still needs to do whatever neural off-loading that it does during REM-sleep; as a result, I get waking dreams of sorts. I'm finding it hard to describe; it's almost an incredibly vivid daydream, but one that almost blocks out all perception of reality until it passes. I've often found that I'm at my most creative, get my best ideas, when I'm just on the edge of falling asleep or waking up; I've been feeling like I'm at that stage for the days. I'll be standing in line at the grocery store and suddenly see have planned an entire graphic novel, complete with finished art work and lettering effects. I'll be reading in a Barnes and Noble and come up with an idea for an illustration, down to what Photoshop filters I'm going to use to get certain rust effects on metal.

The biggest problem is, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that I have a hard time concentrating on anything for very long. No matter how firmly I tried to fix some of these into memory, inevitably I'll see something that'll make my reptile-brain say "Oh! Shiny!" and I'll have lost it. As a result I've taken to the habit of carrying a small sketch pad and pencil with me at all times. As soon as the moment hits me I scribble everything I can remember down as quickly as possible to make sure I've caught enough of whatever flash of inspiration I've just come upon that I'll be able to reproduce the moment later. Admittedly, it has the tendency of making me look like I'm trying to be Guy Pierce in MOMENTO, but when I'm in the middle of this mad rush to capture the ideas, I can't hear that inner critic. It's drowned out in the urgency of trying to preserve the story, the image, whatever.

I think there might be something to this; in the immediacy of the moment, I have to tune everything else out, including my own doubts about my ability, to focus on the work. I think this is something I need to practice doing.

After I complete my round of drugs and sleep for a week, of course.

* * * * *

BETWEEN THE CRACKS recently got a great review from Ninth Art's Nick Brownlow, as part of a review of the Best of the Caption Mini-Con in Bristol. We're going global, baby! Go check it out at http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=384.

Meanwhile, E-Volution Comics is now open for business. 90 pages of comics for $4, including my contribution, NIGHTS OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS, as well as a host of other creators who make me want to cut off their drawing hands and graft them to my wrists. Go and check it out at http://www.evolution-comics.com.

And of course, if you want to check on my tonsillitis, you can drop me a line at domalley@studiounderhill.com.