Anonymous asked: Hi, Uncle Mod -waves- do you have any tips for sticking with a story to its completion? TPoH has been going on for over five years now. How do you not fall out of love with creating it? I think you mentioned that doodle comics help you from starting to resent it, but then how do you find the time to do everything you want to do?
well, TPoH is kind of special, what with it being a story that basically grabbed me by the neck and shook me until I started and it won’t let go until I finish (and probably won’t really let go of me even if I get there!)- but yes, having side projects genuinely helps!
it might seem contrary, spending time on work that isn’t the story which is soooo long that you want to get it done as fast as possible, but if you do nothing but that one thing then it begins to be a chore very quickly. Your brain needs variety! Sure, you shouldn’t just spend time doing the things that aren’t The Thing, that turns into procrastination, but not letting yourself explore and overly suppressing yourself is damaging to your creativity. You want to draw fanart of that new show because you love it, you want to write a little short story in a new style because hey you’ve never done that before, you want to draw a whole year’s worth of scribbly duck comics because you want to repay the characters for bringing your imagination to life in the first place- and none of those are a bad thing! Moderate what you pick, yes, but don’t stomp on it. Squashing all of those urges not only squashes the eternally excitable happy 6-year-old inside you (which makes you sad), but sacrificing those little joyous bursts of spontaneity can actually make you resent the story that you’re dedicating that time to. ‘I want to’ becomes ‘I have to’, and let’s face it- that’s one step away from ‘I don’t want to’. I also learn new things, constantly, by making these side projects- especially with these fan comics- so it all feeds back into TPoH!
Basically you do you, but what I’ve found is that by balancing out my interests, urges, and determination to complete my own story, I’ve ended up with a system that is optimal for 1) not destroying my hands, 2) not destroying my love of the story, and 3) learning new stuff- by always doing new stuff!