On Telling the Right Story

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I recently watched Walk the Line about Johnny Cash's sordid life of drug abuse, philandering, and reckless life decisions all the while trying to make really good music. It's a by-the-book biopic, with great actors, great writers, and great filmmakers operating at the top of their craft. I liked it. Cash is a flawed and broken man who is able to find a way to heal, and ultimately help others through his natural abilities as a singer/songwriter.

I especially liked its theme as stated by Cash's older brother in the opening scene. The two boys are laying in bed, and Johnny is lamenting the fact that his brother is so good, while he is such a bad kid. His brother reads the bible every night trying to know it front to back. His reason:

“...you can't help nobody if you can't tell them the right story.”

The film then goes on to break that idea down and build it up again through the events of Cash's life. He crashes and burns when he believes the wrong story about himself, but when he finally learns the right story about who he is, and who his story connects with he's not only able to help himself, but actually help others.

As a storyteller your reason for writing and drawing and crafting worlds and characters is to ultimately help others. Stories are how people process and digest the messiness of life. They offer a roadmap for healing. If you are failing to do this as a storyteller it might be because you aren't telling the right story.

So how do you tell the right story? You have to tell a story you know and you have to tell a story you believe.

-Jake

On Maintaining Airspeed

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I started this year with a vision, goals that supported that vision, strategy that supported the goals, a schedule to implement the strategy, and initiated the habits and practices that would help me make this vision a reality.

January went great. By February the screws started coming loose. I got casual with my schedule as other urgent and/or important things popped up. As I drifted from the habits and schedule I formed in January I noticed the work started suffering too.

Then I was reminded of this idea from on of my favorite self-mastery books: Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

"When things go haywire, your best opening strategy might be to return -very carefully and consciously- to the habits and practices in play the last time you felt good about the work."

From Art and Fear, page 57.

I didn't want to stall completely. I've been there before and to pull out of a stall is not easy. Sometimes it takes months or years! Realizing I was losing altitude (to continue with this metaphor) I needed to realign the rudder and blast the engines to get this project back to a proper airspeed.

The engines of your project aren't your goals or your vision or your strategy, they are your habits.

For me, that's doing creative work in the mornings when I'm sharp, instead of evenings when I'm easily distracted. It's priming my environment (both physical and digital) to make the next action easy. And it's having a bias towards action instead of endless preparing and hedging.

To get back on track this week I focused in on these habits, which got my airspeed up, and made significant progress on the comic in the last several days.

Return to your creative habits...something to consider if your project has stalled.

-Jake

On the Random

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I've been thinking and working on this idea of "re-wilding" your imagination for the last six months. I think it's important to have your finger on the pulse of popular culture, but that can also be a crutch for creativity. How do avoid making derivative work when you are drinking from the same well as everyone else?

How do you make something new?

This question is always sitting at the back of my mind, so when I read this quote from Gregory Bateson, it resonated with me instantly.

First, Gregory Bateson was, according to his wikipedia entry, "an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields." When you're into that many varied things, and not just into them, but an expert in those fields you tend to have an understanding of the world that your average instrgram surfer doesn't get.

Here's what he said:

No system (neither computer no organism) can produce anything new unless the system contains some source of the random.

Great. So how do you introduce more random into your life? Well, for one thing you can avoid anything that uses an algorithm to populate a feed. In fact, probably avoid anything that has a "feed" as a feature. The social media algorithm is designed to A) show you what you are familiar with and known to like and B) keep your eyes glued on that screen and tapping as long as it can. I can think of 5 other things you can do, but I'll save those for another letter.

Assignment for the week, seek out situations and platforms that get you acquainted with more randomness.

-Jake

On Accountants

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I've been trying hard this year to double down on the processes and systems I've established in past years to improve my productivity and creativity. What I've found over the years is that the more structured my life is, the more I create. The more I create, the better I feel.

I think about this quote from David Brooks often:

"Great creative minds think like artists but work like accountants."

The more I read and learn about successful creative types the more I see a consistency in their daily approach to the work. They show up every morning and do a little bit, take a break, then do a little bit more, then cut out for the day. And in between starting and finishing their work for the day, they do just the work. Nothing else. Focused.

This last week those systems and processes started to break down a little bit. I found myself not creating as much, and wasting time on shallow activities. As a result I felt just...bleh. I need to tighten the screws in a few places, get back on track, and remind myself what is at stake here.

I'm not saying you should avoid the curveballs life throws at you. I get plenty of those. When those come at you, you just have to dodge, weave, pivot and deal with them. What I am talking about is the dumb, distracting, stuff I do that sabotages my day.

As Cal Newport says, to be productive you gotta drain the shallows, and focus on the deep. This is my goal for next week.

-Jake

On Windows

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I've been talking to a wide range of artists lately for my podcast. Several of these interviews haven't dropped yet, but I'm seeing an emerging practice in the routine of these highly successful creators: lack of social media usage. And specifically a morning devoted to creating. One artist specifically left social media entirely and subscribed to a handful physical magazines to fill the inspiration hole that social media left.

There's two things at work here: concentration and inspiration. These might be the nucleic ingredients to creating. An artist needs to find a proper balance of input and output. I'm thinking a lot about input and where that should come from, and its delivery method. I think the worst possible way to get inspired is by surfing social media. Yes, you can get inspired, but at what cost?

I like Patricia Lockwood's perspective on this from her 2018 essay on writing. In it she says:

The first necessity is to claim the morning, which is mine. If I look at a phone first thing the phone becomes my brain for the day. If I don’t look out a window right away the day will be windowless.

I like the idea of windows. You can spend your day looking through a tiny glass window in your hand, seeing what thousands of other people are seeing. (Which does have its place, I admit). Or you can look out the full sized window in your house and see a view unique to you. What are other windows you have access to? And how can you replace the tiny handheld one with those?

This is still half-baked, but I'm thinking it through right now and wanted to share where I'm at.

-Jake

On Stair Climbing

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

Sometimes an image just nails a concept so much better than words:

I come back to this theme a lot. Eating an elephant on bite at a time, dripping water eroding a stone, and in this case: climbing stairs.

Show up every day and just do what is in front of you. Don't worry about tomorrow, or yesterday. Just climb the step.

(Image by https://www.lizandmollie.com/)

-Jake

On Manifestos

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

Several years ago I was asking myself the deep questions about art, creativity, life, pursuing happiness, and balancing that against my actions, needs, and beliefs. I decided I needed to make a personal creative manifesto.

I made a video about it way back in 2015: LINK​

Manifestos can come across as pretentious, so I don't think you HAVE to have one for yourself. However, it does make things a lot easier when you are in a position to decide what to do with your work as a creative type. When you're caught up in creative bliss the lines between screwing around and getting actual work done can get really blurry. Having a declared a set of rules, intentions, or motives for yourself can keep you from getting too far out in the weeds.

My creative manifesto is simply these three things, and specifically in this order of priority:

1. Provide a healthy, safe, and comfortable life for my family

2. Create work that inspires, edifies, or contributes positively to our culture

3. Teach others to do be able to do what I do

Ideally, the three all work in harmony, but I won't let one thing higher in the list suffer by serving something lower in the list.

I bring this up now only because I recently saw a great manifesto posted by a small publisher based in South London that does zines. They are called Colossive Press and this is their manifesto:

I think there's a lot to gain from this, and if I were to expand Number 2 of my manifesto it would include a lot of what's written here.

If you feel a little lost at times, or are ever unclear as to what you should be doing as a creator, take some time to ask yourself these questions and evaluate yourself:

• What do you want to accomplish in life?

• What do you like to do?

• What are you really good at doing?

​
Then write something out that nails down your ideals, principles, and motives.

Hope that helps.

-Jake

On Batman

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I was thinking about Batman this week. (By the way, I'm not too excited for this new Batman movie. I want to be, but I don't need more darkness in my life right now and boy howdy it looks grim. Crazy idea, but hear me out: What if we got a live action Batman film that was...PG? I'd like a little less dark and a little more knight with my Batman, please. A live action take on the 90's Animated Series would be everything for me. Set in the 30s-40s. The tech isn't over the top. He has to be a detective...stuff like that.)

ANYWAY...Some creators want to be all Batman and no Bruce Wayne.

They want to spend all their time working on the fun stuff, staying out all night, punching bad guys, using the latest tech, and driving a cool car. But Batman does not exist without Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne spends time in the real world, he's watching the finances, he foots the bills, he's out doing research, he's networking, he's going to meetings at Wayne Enterprises. All of that needs to happen for Batman to be able to go out and have fun fighting crime.

At the beginning of my career I wanted to just play the Batman part. I wanted to have fun doing illustrations, graphic novels, working in animation, dabbling with 3D. However, I think in order to really succeed as a creator you need to learn to embrace both the fun art side (Batman) and the less fun business side (Bruce Wayne).

The fully actualized version of you is the person who can kick butt at art, and also kick butt at business. Be Batman AND Bruce Wayne.

-Jake

On bothering

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I'm not a guy who reads poems for fun or leisure...but a good poem always seems to hit me hard just at the times I need them. Poet Sean Thomas Dougherty wrote the above poem. It's from his book The Second O of Sorrow.

I needed to see this. Here I am wondering why I should spend half my week working on a comic about a space mouse and a living skeleton. Who cares about that? Who needs it? Why bother?

"Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words." - Sean Thomas Dougherty

You can switch out "words" with images, film, dances, scale models, comic pages, LEGO builds, and I think it still works just the same.

As I worked on my comic this week I also noticed I've been feeling high. I get that way when I make things, especially comics. I've been in such a good mood. Felt like nothing could bring me down.

Thinking about this poem today I realize that maybe the wounded person who needs my comic is...me.

And that's reason enough for me to bother.

-Jake

On cauliflower

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

The first 15 minutes of this podcast was just great. It is an episode from Seth Godin's Akimbo podcast which I recommend listening to from the beginning if you do any sort of creative work. In this episode he breaks down the Beatles Get Back documentary and how it applies to "The Practice" which is what he calls doing the work to get good.

One part in here stuck out to me more then the rest (and it's ALL great). It starts right at 9:52 and I'll just share the transcript here in case you don't want to listen:

This time George is stuck, and he comes to Paul and John and asks for help. John gives him standard Paul advice, just say a word, whatever word pops into your head cuz you'll come up with a better word.

*he then tells him to say "attracts me like a cauliflower" see video above*

I think putting the word cauliflower on the wall of your cubicle, or your home office is a really good idea because every time you see that word cauliflower, it will remind you: just put in a word and then you can make it better.

But what happens here is George can't adopt the new. Practice because it doesn't come easily. He's fighting it. And we keep waiting for him to say the right words, because we know the right words are going to come, we've heard the song a million times before, and the right words, eventually came. But if he was a little lighter on his feet, if he wasn't looking in the moment for the kind of perfection and approval, he was seeking, it would have come more easily.

That's part of the practice.

This was great for me to hear right now because I started laying out pages for a comic this week. Laying out a comic is essentially writing through drawing and it's difficult. There's so many ways to visualize the story how do you find the one true way that best reflects the scenes in your mind? The infinity of the blank canvas can be paralyzing.

I needed to be reminded to just put down cauliflower on the page.

It removes some of the friction, and the wall of it needed to be good. It doesn't need to be good at this stage it just needs to exist. Molding it into something good comes next.

-Jake

On Uncertainty

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

In 2021 I let some fear and uncertainty guide my decisions. I pulled creative punches. I took the safe route. By no means did I have an unproductive year, I just look at what I worked on and it was a bunch of things that had low risk low reward, or low-risk medium reward. They were all things that leaned on lessons I've already learned. While it was a safe year, there wasn't a ton of growth.

Maybe I just needed a year to regroup and huddle?

The thing is, there's an amount of uncertainty that is needed to be an independent creator.

The book Art and Fear puts it nicely:

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding.

I have no idea what 2022 will bring. I'm optimistic for this year, but even though I've made plans it's the wild card draw that gets you. That said, 2022 is going to be an exercise in embracing uncertainty for me. I have a little post it note in front of my desk reminding me to have a bias towards action. To remind me to step out of the comfort of researching, developing, planning, and wade into the cold uncertain waters of MAKING.That's all for this week. Thank you for reading this newsletter and hope you have a great weekend!

-Jake

On Storytelling

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

"There are two types of people who come out of Louisiana, preachers and storytellers. For heaven's sake, be a storyteller. The world has too many preachers." - Walter Isaacson , Author

Great video with Isaacson here: LINK

I come back to this quote a lot. When someone preaches to you you're either building up a wall to push back, or you're going along for the ride. All depends on whether you are aligned with the preacher or not. Preaching usually doesn't shift your point of view. It just reinforces what you already know.

Storytelling, on the other hand, has power to change hearts and minds. The best stories don't preach. They're not didactic. The best stories show us truth through the eyes of someone else. They open a window to us that we haven't seen before. When we experience something someone else has gone through via a story, we are changed as well. I'd like more of that in the world please.

That's what I hope to be doing with my art.

-Jake

On Experience

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

"Some people get 20 years of experience, while others get one year of experience...twenty times in a row." from Angela Duckworth's book GRIT

I've been working professionally since 1998. October marks my 22 year anniversary of my first big-boy job at an animation studio. I have learned A TON over the years. However, I have seen my work stagnate in the last decade. I feel like I got to a level of proficiency in craft where I could make things happen on a schedule, but the huge leaps in ability were few and far apart. I feel like I've been running on a treadmill. Getting a workout, but not moving anywhere. I have grown a lot in time management, organizational skills, marketing, and business practices. But my craft has suffered in the process.

I decided to take up the practice of Kaizen. This is the Japanese practice of resisting the plateau of arrested development. The literal translation is "continuous improvement." One who practices kaizen isn't satisfied with taking on a new art piece or a project that they've done before, but is consistently putting themselves in uncomfortable situations where they must learn something new in order to get out of it.

Kaizen is "a positive state of mind, not a negative one. It's not looking backward with dissatisfaction. It's looking forward, wanting to grow." - Hester Lacey from GRIT

As we enter the last few months of 2020 it might be a good time to reflect on the last few years and evaluate whether you're getting years of experience, or the same experience over and over and over again.

For me I reviewed my work and decided to learn a 3D software. To figure out how to incorporate it into my illustration/concept art workflow. I feel like a baby learning this stuff, but each time I sit down with the software I have those wonderful A HA moments. Makes me excited to level up once I fight through this learning curve.

-Jake

On Magic

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I like this quote by Yeats. It reminds me of this quote by Jean Guraud aka Moebius:

“I am a nexus of universes. I belong to a class of people--I’m not alone in this--whose hand and eye are antennae, sensitive to a certain type of reality”

Every once and a while my antennae pick up something magical and I’m able to translate it into something others can understand. My goals in life lately haven’t been to have more experiences like that, and I’m realizing that mistake.

I get an email from Seth Godin every day. I don’t read them all, and half the ones I do read are just ok. But I really like what he sent last week:

“Most of the time, the phrase is, “it’s time to get back to work.” This means it’s time to stop being creative, stop dancing with possibility, stop acquiring new insights and inspiration–and go back to the measurable grind instead. Maybe we’d be better off saying, “I need to get back to making magic.” Because that’s what we’d actually like to be getting paid to create.”

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to making magic. Perhaps you do too.

-Jake

On Attention

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

"Your attention is your soul spending itself" - Patricia Lockwood

I think about this quote a lot. Your attention, like time, is valuable and finite. What are you giving this precious resource away to? What gets only half your attention that should get all of it? And do those things feed your soul or destroy it? Also, when you are enjoying something "free" (especially online) the commodity being exchanged is usually your attention. Make sure what you are spending it on is worth it. Just something to think about as we dive into this next weekend.

-Jake