Look at that, I can type again! Let’s see how long it all lasts.
I’ve been taking it easy for the past week, trying to get my shoulder back into normal working order; for the most part, it’s been going well. The pain is more or less gone, just some occasional stiffness and a bit of tingling in my fingers, but I’m making sure to stretch and massage the spot where I suspect a nerve might have been pinched. If it’s not sorted by next week, I have an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon lined up for Monday.
In the meantime, I’m doing my best to get back to drawing. I did some quick pinup pics for my Fodderverse friend over on Twitter, just to see if my arm was still functional; good news: it was, so comics should resume tomorrow, or Monday at the latest depending on my workload. I can’t guarantee that this Showcase story will be done before the end of the month, but I’d rather my arm didn’t fall off instead, so we’ll see how that progresses.
I won’t lie, it was a little scary when I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to draw anything this week; I didn’t leap to any conclusions, but because I was doing my best not to aggravate my injury, I found myself temporarily cut off from my go-to creative outlets, and that can be dangerous for someone whose brain never shuts up. It’s situations like those that become breeding grounds for intrusive thoughts and paranoid assumptions, not to mention the guilt; I take time off for my own wellbeing, then feel incredibly guilty that I’m not doing anything productive, whether that be creative stuff or even just housework. Fortunately, I’ve still got those herbal tranquillisers, which have also been instrumental at keeping my anxiety in check at the day job.
The pinup art that I’ve been able to sneak in during my free moments was an even greater help than the medicine. It’s somewhat telling that I get infinitely more personal satisfaction out of seeing one person appreciate the art I do for them, than I do from churning out dozens of impersonal mock ups for faceless clients week after week at the day job. The dopamine just hits differently; knowing that I can make someone happy by producing a quality artwork is the ultimate satisfaction for me as a creative. I think it’s the reason a lot of people get into comics as an industry, because the artistic satisfaction can be coupled with entertaining people. Sadly, it’s a depressing fact that the industry isn’t so kind to the people involved.
A recent trend on social media saw the rise of #ComicsBrokeMe, with a bunch of comic creators, both artists and writers, coming forward with stories of being underpaid and overworked after years of dedication in a medium that they loved. While I’ve been through less than a fraction of the same struggles during my time as a creator (most of these stories come out of working with bigger publishers), I have been stiffed on payment for comic work before, and I think it had a hand in why I held myself back for as long as I did. I’ve long had a problem with giving up prematurely when things have tripped me in the past; this website was dead for over a year, lest we forget, and it’s been an uphill battle to convince myself to keep going in the face of hardship; hardships such as, say, a shoulder injury that put a serious dampener on my creative abilities.
With all that said, I intend to keep on creating, even if it’s never going to bring me fame and fortune, as nice as that would be. I create because I have to; even if I were sitting pretty atop a mountain of gold, I’d still be creating. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme (heck it’s barely a get-rich-slowly scheme), it’s a fundamental need, and I’m not going to stop; keep an eye out for said creations coming soon.
Ciao for now.