The Feast & Famine Cycle

On being free from the multi-year Writer's Block, and preparing for the next drought.

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I usually complete a graphic novel script once every 2-ish years. I spend 1/3 of that time developing and writing the story, and 2/3s drawing.

2026 is set to be a record-breaking year: I finished 2 scripts (Bee's Guide to Applied Romantics, the current Chapter of TWIDI) and halfway-finished a travelogue memoir (the other half hasn't happened yet). I am currently in the midst of writing 2 more scripts.

After almost 4 years of nothing, this burst of motivation is welcome. For awhile I feared I lost my ability to write. So to be able to witness and prove to myself that I can execute my ideas and themes as I envisioned (or better) is encouraging.

I usually schedule my writing on a project-basis: I don't work on the next project until I finish the current one. I find that the single-minded focus helps with the immersion and recalling my intent/thoughts across all stages of the project - especially important for a research-heavy work like Alexander.

What's changed is that I am suspecting my Writer's Block isn't an occasional, short-term condition. I've had blocks before the last one:

1. 2016-2017: An almost semester-long block when I was cracking my head figuring out the framework for TCM Volume II. Studying Gothic Literature for class broke it.
2. 2020-2021: A multi-month block caused by a mismatch between the stressful conditions of World Events (see: Will I Ever Know Passion Untainted by Anger Ever Again?) and the whimsical, cheery mindset that My Aunt is a Monster required of me.
3. 2022-2026: You know.

My Writer's Block is chronic, and each successive cycle keeps getting longer and longer. I worry about the next one that I will inevitably have: will it be of reasonable length, or worse? (I dare not think about the worst case scenarior: what if it's forever?)

When the blocks used to be short, my usual strategy of taking time away or resting or immersing myself in a diet of artistic exposure was sufficient. I still think it's a solid solution, by the way, and I will never rid myself the opportunity to take leave from being an artist so I can be a person. Plus, letting the brain stew-cook is a vital part of my writing process.

But it's not a solution that effectively produces tangible outcomes. Sure, it has many intangible benefits, such as maintaining my sanity and will (a priority if I want to stay making comics for life), and all of that time away maintains the integrity and vitality of my stories.

The publishing and art worlds don't really get it though. Visibility is such a key component of being an artist/author nowadays. You can't just hide away in your island anymore and be undisturbed in the Schrodinger State of Rotting Away/Making Work: you must always be making and showing something for eyes to see. That's totally fine if the constant state of make-and-tell is an organic occurrence, but not when it's done out of pressure. As means to maintain relevance and market appeal.

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Part of what instilled my fear during the last block was the awareness that the longer I am gone, the more difficult opportunities will be for me. Funding/residencies want to see your latest work. Publishers want to see a year-by-year succession of numbers (books published, royalties earned, etc). Your social media algorithm cares more constant posting. Something you published years ago, even if it did well, is not as valuable when it was fresh. The new is always valued, except when it doesn't exist yet.

A contradiction exists in my mind: the awareness of the aforementioned reality, and my resistance to succumb to that reality's monkey-dancing demands.

I hate being forced to do things and to push ideas when they are not ready even when I am at my most healthy creatively. What more during the fallow season. I literally physically just cannot do it, but the external world insists regardless. Makemakemake, hustlehustlehustle, run as hard as you can down the rat race, write or die.

So this time I'm changing strategy: I am bulk-writing scripts, taking one idea off the backburner at a time. The hope is that when the next Writer's Block happens, I will have an archive of completed scripts to start making art for. Luckily for me, the Writer's Block isn't that strongly correlated with the Artist's Block.

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I always find writing the most difficult hurdle in my process, even though it's not as labour-intensive as the drawing, which takes up the majority of the graphic novel process. The actual act of typing when the story flows may not take as much time, but the steps before it: the thinking of characters, the themes, the Onion... those sets of steps are just as hard to begin as they are to control.

Most of my stories emerge as visions - characters, premise, themes, beginning and end appear almost fully-formed: rarely has a graphic novel/webcomic diverged too much from its original vision. Sure, characters mature and details change, but The World in Deeper Inspection from 2010 is still The World in Deeper Inspection from 2026, for example. The same can be said for all of my work. I'd even say that the final comic, changes and all, is the ultimate destiny of the original vision. It has always meant to be the way it became, with the required time and continual presence.

It's this process of transformation that trips me up. I can tell you that even knowing the beginning and end of your story doesn't make executing it any easier. In fact, I think knowing the end puts on a specific type of pressure: can I pull this off? Can I find all of the pieces that will make it land? What are all these pieces anyway? So I go out to find them, all the pieces that will build up my Jenga Tower and hopefully slotted together in such a way to not make everything crash.

Finding the pieces involves a lot of reading/seeing and thinking. This is ironically the easiest part of the process, yet also the most unreliable. Like I mentioned before, I can't force ideas out if they are not ready. Ideas need time to percolate and gel. It can take days and weeks and years. Then one day it all comes together. It's random and spontaneous and designed and calculated. Unfortunately it gets affected by things like life and stress and obligations.

Though this stage of gathering and wandering is a valuable stage in my creative process, I am still uncertain about how to market it (for residencies and grants) in a way that doesn't sound like I am asking for time to sloth around. It's not being lazy, because it's building a foundation for creating future productivity (a lot of art owes its existence to shower thoughts). But it does demand a lot of faith and patience from the part of whoever holds the purse strings. What if the silence takes years?

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Anyway, all that preamble to say, even in my Writer's Block, I was still doing a lot of thinking. I was creating output in the form of scattered notes, aborted drafts and sketches. All of that scattering during the 4 years of silence has built me the foundation to pursue 5 scripts (in various stages of completion) - a wild burst of productivity.

I don't know if this is a good thing. If I had to choose, I'd prefer a regular, predictable cycle - 1 book written and drawn every 2-ish years - for many practical reasons: it's easier to apply for grants and residencies, to stay relevant and schedule events. The Feast-and-Famine cycle that my natural body is trending towards does make me worry about how my artmaking will fit with my 30s.

I guess I will find out fully its consequence after I draw and publish these scripts. Eh.