Breaking Bad Habits

Of late, I have been bedeviled by procrastination and waiting for inspiration like a train that is never going to come. Maybe a more apt metaphor is the train is sitting on the tracks, but it’s not moving. When times are good, it was just a matter of touching the pen to paper and the drawings or ideas would just flow. That isn’t the case right now, but I don’t want to just put my sketchbook aside and wait for the lightbulb to ignite above my head. I think I may have to step off of that stalled train, get behind it and push.

Supporting cast of characters

I’ve watched videos online about the creative process and the nuts and bolts of avoiding the pitfalls of insidious time wasters. The problem with these betterment videos is that they become the insidious time wasters that the authors warn about. Their business is not creativity — it’s betterment videos. The worst ones are the videos from “influencers” (a term I hate) promising surefire methods of defeating procrastination via the use of their “app” (another term I despise.) As is always the case, there is a nominal fee involved or, worst yet, a nominal reoccurring fee.

The real problem is falling down the rabbit-hole of videos on a particular subject of interest or a completely frivolous time waster. Hey, this other video has a compelling title, and it’s only eight minutes long. I’ll give it a look. One video begets another video, and before you know it the day is shot. And the next. And the next. And I’m none the wiser.

The problem is that I am consuming and not producing. It may work for the people producing the videos, but it doesn’t work for me.

The trick is not to watch the videos. The time wasters can wait. Instead, I pick up a sketchbook or — what I’ve been doing a lot lately — is writing. I’ve got a few dollar store notebooks I’ve been scribbling into, and a thin looseleaf binder that I have been using to outline the Teenage Beast story. When I have a little down time in work, I try to use it now either writing or drawing by hand. If I have a drawing going, I work on it, and if not, I’ll write some notes or work on the outline. Yes, I could type notes into a computer, but it’s too easy to open up a browser tab and jump to something else. I’m going to try to keep this in the real world with no other distractions.

The star of the story

I think the trick for me now is to plan this story out with an outline rather than making it up as I go along. It’s been fun, but I think it’s time to flesh this out and make something of it.

Stay tuned.