Keeping Good Habits

This is the thin 3-ring binder I bought from a dollar store near work and filled it with 97¢ worth of looseleaf paper in order to work out the story of The Teenage Beast. I am writing an outline for what will probably be a novella and have done a very rough first draft of the first chapter. I’m doing all of this longhand which greatly reduces the possibility of those outside distractions I wrote about last week.

I’ve slipped a color laser printout of my Teenage Beast drawing into the front of the binder in order to identify the contents. I’m pleased with the way this looks. It’s a hell of a lot better than a Dymo label. It makes it feel real like it’s a genuine product that will sit on a shelf.

Punk Rock Girl

Teenage Beast has mostly sprung from the pages of sketchbooks both new and very old. It’s been a lot of fun, but sometimes I run out of gas and the blank page of the sketchbook stares back. I want to keep some creative momentum going so if drawing isn’t working out, I’ll turn to writing in the notebooks in order to build up the story. The writing in turn will give a direction to the drawings. Rather than drawing something and shoehorning it into the story, I’ll figure out what needs to be drawn first.

If I stall out on Teenage Beast, I have other stories that I have been developing on and off, here and there over the past few decades. I’ve been stockpiling notions and ideas in various notebooks since I took a creative writing class back in tenth grade. It’s a slog reading through these notebooks particularly the ones from high school, but occasionally I come across a nugget amidst all of the dirt.

Ultimately, I want to stay busy. I want to fill the sketchbooks with my drawings and the notebooks with my writing. I want to do what I should be doing instead of falling down the rabbit hole of Youtube videos and streaming shows.