symbols and rites

[egypturnash]

Last night, ultraken came over. We went out for supper, then hung out and talked. We've done this most every weekend since we both moved to LA for career stuff, and likely will keep doing this until one of us leaves the city. Crunch time and vacations intervene, and the precise day drifts, but it's a pretty consistent ritual for several years, now.

One of the things we talked about was adulthood rites, rites of passage, marking rituals. Brief transformative rituals where you go in one side a child, and come out an adult. They were on his mind because they'd come up in his regular Bible study sessions (he's some strain of Christian; religion's one of those subjects on which we agree to disagree and occasionally theorize) as part of the backstory that the original Bible authors and readers would've had. It's a book by and for a different culture that white America's social structures bear little relation to.

There really aren't any marking points where you're an adult any more. Where it is said that you are one. Not in white America. There are private biological embarrassments that say you're a teenager, but nothing to mark the transition from that awkward state into being Adult.

The 24-Hour Comic, I opined, is an attempt to create one. It's a lonely thing, a dangerous thing, a complicated thing, a proving of the self. An element of the fantastic, of the altered mental states a lot of adulthood rites I've read about tend to induce: you will be wild from sleep deprivation; you will be a little weird on whatever chemical aid you may choose to get you through the night. And the divine madness of trying to be creative for 24 hours straight. It's a trial to be passed through, I realized last night.

I went in overconfident. Oh, this is easy. I can be a show-off and put it up online while I do it, it'll be cool, the ego-stroke will keep me going. Yeah! I even have this cool idea for where to start, it'll be easy. I'll have hours left over!

But somewhere around 5AM that night, I failed. I decided to let myself fail. I'd been nursing growing despair at slowly falling behind because scanning took a lot more time than I thought it would, and it was breaking my momentum each time; the thinking about the next page while I filled in the blacks in the last panel or three was evaporating. At a juncture of 'well, what happens now?', after those tentacles, 2-3 hours behind from the accumulated scanning and posting, I "took a nap" - but really, I was lying to myself. I knew I was going to let myself fall asleep and give up.

I woke up in a funk, and all I did for the next few days was feel like a failure and play GTA: Vice City. Playing that made me feel like even more of a failure somehow, as it's definitely a soul-corroding game; too close to reality and the only way to win is to be a cold, callous asshole, really.

I need to finish what I started, and more importantly, I need to try again, having looked at it in this perspective. I need to sit down with nothing but myself, some randomizers and inspirations, and journey through the Twelve Hours of the Night, coming out inky and exhausted, but proud... and changed. Able, maybe, to think of myself as someone who can actually finish something. There's a lot of important, unfinished things around me, and there always have been.

---

While I was having that conversation with Ken, as it so happened, koogrr was finishing his journey through that homebrew rite, inspired by my failed attempt. He made it through, however - with a story that was clearly digging into a lot of his psyche, to boot. Congratulations!

(This is expanded from a comment I made on his "I'm done, here it is" entry.)

Comments

[nicked-metal.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking a lot of the same stuff myself. (Although not about your particular trial.)

But you're right - we have a need to be tested, and the test has to be difficult enough to be meaningful. I think understanding that is a very important step.

[milkpanzer.livejournal.com]

It must be going around... I've been feeling much the same way. All these unfinished projects and only poor excuses as to why they are unfinished. Can I finish anything?

I am glad that you are going to try again! That's a big step...not to just give up on something forever. "Oh, tried that once and failed so now I know I can't do it." That's easy to say. I say it to myself a lot. But deep down I know it's not true...

[paka.livejournal.com]

My personal goal as far as comics is to be able to pencil 8 pages a day, which was the rate at which Jack Kirby worked steadily. While I haven't done that, I've pencilled and inked 4 pages in a day, so maybe I'll get there eventually?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. With a normal work-day, that's eight pages in eight hours, pencilled and scripted. More detail than I put in, of course, but not inking would help a lot!

[defenbaugh.livejournal.com]

Well I think it can apply to alot of things besides comic work. You tend to give up on something and -let it- fail. I can think of several instances you have spoken to me of where you have done this. Dont let yourself give up, or better yet, when you KNOW your doing that method of thinking, go into over drive. This is exactly the kind of martyr behavior crackjackl was talking about. Its habit. Break the habit.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

Heck, I make things fail sometimes, I know, and I try to beat myself out of doing it. It's some growing up I've put off a long time, and tried to do more than once.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I don't, however, blame anyone but myself for my failures. Not for long. There are some where others were an obstacle, but most are nothing more than me shrugging and giving up at the slightest problem, and going off to waste time until failure's assured.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

At least you tried. That's better than most people do.

Trying and failing probably teaches you more than trying and succeeding on your first attempt.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

But trying, failing, learning, and trying again - that's what I've had problems with my whole life.

I'm pretty good at putting off trying in the first place, too. I'd done that for a while with a 24-hour comic; this's the second time I talked about doing one on my LJ, and I've wanted to do one for ages.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

You are a lot more couragious at trying things than you claim. I cite the hair dye conversation we had.

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the Procrastination Club, then. :)

(I'm really bad about that sort of thing too. There's so many things I ought to do but don't...)

[rainwing.livejournal.com]

*hugs you good, squeezing you warmly* I think it would take me a few attempts too. But I am not so defeatist as I ave been, now, and I'm curious.. what're the unspoken rules? Does the plot have to be a brand new idea, or can it be the threads of ideas previous, brought together?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Mmm. It's definitely an experience to even try it.

The rules are pretty much laid out here; I cheated a little by having the inspiration for it in my head before I began. You can see more of the backstory for the challenge, and one of the first two done, here. Having the story be new, pulled from the ether on the spot, is suggested, but not mandatory.

I think it's inevitable that some of your favorite themes and undercurrents are going to creep into it.

[defenbaugh.livejournal.com]

Good point. What exactly are the rules? 24 pages in 24 hours? Must be inked? Blah blah blah? Have to scan em in too? Or is that optional. I mean can you finish it up and then scan it the next day when you wake?

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

The Dare (http://www.scottmccloud.com/inventions/24hr/dare/dare.html), or as I was calling them, the rules.

Basically, complete a 24 page comic book in 24 continuous hours. Meaning everything: Story, finished art, lettering, colors (if you want 'em), paste-up, everything! Once pen hits paper, the clock starts ticking. 24 hours later, the pen lifts off the paper, never to descend again.

No sketches, designs, plot summaries or any other kind of direct preparation can precede the 24 hour period. Indirect preparation such as assembling tools, reference materials, food, music etc. is fine.

The 24 hours are continuous. You can take a nap if you like but the clock will continue to tick!

Scanning is pretty much optional, as would be a trip to the photocopy store afterwards. I did most of mine the following day, though Greywolf dropped by, picked up my first 12 pages while I was in the middle, took them home and scanned them. As I wasn't doing a webcomic, scanning them wasn't part of the process, I was working for a comic book layout. Mostly, it's once you hit the 24 hour mark, you stop changing the pages. "Handling" like making sure you get the best reproduction possible, isn't really a part of the creative act.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

I honestly believe that if you try again, you will be successful. And I'm well away of the same troubles with trying and failing that you have, given the mistakes I've made.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

I really want to thank you, and wish I could give you a hug.

I had very little confidence in my ability, and no story. I had a starting concept that wouldn't leave my mind, and no ideas for what would come, excpt for a vague theme I wanted to explore. I was expecting a spectacular failure. About the only thing I felt good about was my ability to stay up 24 hours straight, from my driving experiences to AC a couple weeks ago.

Even succeeding hurt. I'm still trying to put all the emotions away, a strange exhuberance-melancholy, happy-sad, keeps bubbling up, overwhelming me. I had to face things I didn't want to, when all my mental protections were shot. I didn't think it would mean so much. It feels like a quest, a dream-journey, a test, a religious experience, a rite-of-passage. Something. It left a mark, I wasn't expecting that.

At AC someone was wearing a shirt that said "People who are afraid of following their dreams will try to crush yours." I have... perhaps had, I'm not sure now, a problem of quitting things before I try them. I first heard of this when you mentionned it, and my thoughts were "There's no freaking way I could." I haven't had a good goal in a long time. Seeing you try made it possible for me to try, seeing what stole your energy allowed me to avoid that pitfall. I wish I could hug you and make you feel better. I know sitting and playing GTA because I hate my life all too well. I know you can do it, you're so much more talented than I am. Try.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Well, if it makes you feel any better, it made me want to do one too...

Not that I could do it in 24 hours... but I think I have a 8 to 12 panel comic in me somewhere that'll be comming out soon. As soon as I get the rest of the panels back from my sister.

What I like about comics is that there doesn't have to be words in it unless you want them to be. YOu don't really have to be too consistant about scene and rhythem unless it is important. The most important thing is that there IS a flow, that the pitcures all line up and bring forward a message at the end of the series.

If we just end it on the Tenticle page, that's okay, cause we can draw conclusions on what happened from that. Sad, poor, awwwww, why did she die conclusions, but conclusions none the less. While the challange of the 24 hour comic is to do 24 pages one at a time in a hour or less (And sometimes cheating a little like you did is okay and cool), the cooler point is that you have made a story and brought it from begining to almost or to the conclusion in a day. Most Writters barely are able to do that, so on that level, you should feel proud.

Love and Lollipops