I would like to start this entry with a thank you to those who have taken the time to check out the Hey, Amateur! Kickstarter I wrote about in my first entry. We are well on our way to getting funding, but I encourage you to consider supporting me and my fellow creators in backing the project. It’s really appreciated, and I guarantee you will be pleased with what we are up to.

Over the past week my sleep has been poor, I have a major deadline looming and I’d be lying if I said part of the issue hasn’t been stress. All my life I have dreamed about writing comics for a living and here I am, doing it, and it is the hardest thing I have ever done. No, I’m not sweating in the summer sun digging trenches, or dealing with a careless public in a corporate setting, hell, I don’t even need to wear pants! The hard part is in the uncertainty.

For years I have said (often in jest) that I like to “live in the mystery” a term I stole from somewhere long forgotten. I use this phrase to describe my lack of long term planning. It isn’t a good thing by Western standards I’ll wager, worthy of scorn from those who would feel it their role to impart some unsolicited wisdom. The “mystery” remains one of the few ways I have been able to reconcile the hopelessness I know in my heart to be central to the truth. Maybe it’s a self fulfilling prophecy to live like my days are numbered, but it is a prophecy that will absolutely be proven true given enough time.

While I live in the mystery, I have never been one to allow myself to fear financially. I have always gotten up early and gone to work, stayed late, pulled OT hours, in short, I’ve done what it takes. Even on a meager salary I’ve always made sure that I can cover my bills and not have to constantly check my account. I wish to continue on this way until I drop dead at my desk, but as a freelance writer the most gripping fear is that there will be no reason to even be at that desk!

My brother Steven is a killer photographer. Like many troglodytes I have at times thought that photography was a lesser art, more reliant on the tool than the hand and eye. I have had this feeling rightly driven from my mind by watching what he does and knowing full well, that the tools aren’t the magic. We all laugh when some bum asks a great illustrator what kind of pencil they have used, like it’s a magic wand that will impart a lifetime at the drawing board to anyone willing to drop 7.99 on that soft graphite. It isn’t the tools, you know this right? The tools can be a handy excuse for procrastination, or something to foreshorten the suffering involved in a process, but it’s the head and heart of the creator that makes the magic.

But I digress, back to my brother and I. When I went freelance my brother had some great wisdom for me. Having been a freelancer for many years himself, abandoning the safety of an hourly wage he would know. His advice was to allow myself to relax. He explained that during his years as a freelancer he was never off the clock, always hustling to find more work. He gave up video games (a passion of his) and barely watched television. He wouldn’t go out with friends because, while he had some money, he didn’t know if another job would manifest before his next billing cycle. He wasn’t really living, until he sat himself down and gave himself the very advice he sought to impart to me.

I had already found that trap by the time he got to me. I wasn’t ever allowing myself to turn off, and in many ways that is still where I’m at. To the casual observer I have plenty of idle time. I can be found reading, listening to podcasts with a glazed expression, baking bread leisurely with that same glaze, but during these times I’m churning. It’s not just the freelance way, it’s the writers way.

I was out recently with my friend Evan Narcisse, an immense talent and freelance writer (if you haven’t read Rise of the Black Panther Marvel has been goodly enough to collect it in a beautiful trade- do get it, you’ll become an instant fan of Evan’s) and we were commiserating on how while a writer can knock out enough words in a day to feel accomplished, the real work is ALWAYS going on. Everything is an education, everything is potential, part of us always unable to be completely in the moment because there’s an internal court reporter clacking away in hopes of finding the next thing. But that’s only part of it, right?

The other part is the feeling that you’re constantly bothering editors. The “hey did you get my email” message can only be reworded so many times, and a human being can only deal with so much silent rejection without it taking a major toll. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a creative holding pattern because all of your hope and financial stability lives in a single, dusty, unanswered email that has been filed away in a digital waste bin without so much as “nice try kid” to show for it. After a few weeks it has be counted as a loss and let go of, soon you learn that if this thing is gonna work you’re going to have to count on NOTHING until a contract has been signed, and even then the future is not certain.

That’s how it goes, if you’re lucky you didn’t confide in a friend about this great potential project only to later have to explain that editors went another way, almost always freelance code for “I don’t know what the fuck happened and I’m still mortally wounded by it.” I have learned to keep my mouth shut, and for anyone who really knows me, this can be really hard. I’m not a braggart, I think I just desperately want to be excited and to share that excitement. Remember fatalistic stuff from earlier in this rambling diatribe? I’m hustling to find joy. Some of us carry a darkness that is only lit when we have found an outlet, a safe place to feel pride (had to look that word up) and give ourselves a break from that shitty voice in our head telling us we will die without having shared the very thing that may redeem us for our consumption.

Some mornings I wake up and feel like I could Kool-Aid Man my way through a wall. I’ll rise and attack the process, sometimes for no reason clear to me. Other days I get up and putter around, I go to the bad place, the place where I want to walk away. Who am I kidding, this is common, it’s the theme, the throughline of the thing. The default of every freelancer I know is the fear. We all fight it off in different ways, the ones who do best in that battle seem to have careers, the others fade away. 

Writing is less about being good at telling stories than it is about all the other stuff. Here are a couple to consider.

• Slay the Nemean Lion- write everyday, even w/o assignment
• Slay the Nine Headed Lernaean Hydra- know most of it will be garbage
• Capture the Ceryneian Hind- stay up to date on what’s working in the industry
• Capture the Erymanthian Boar- realize that other people tricks won’t work for you
• Clean the Augean stables in a single day- edit/rewrite that shit
• Slay the Stymphalian Birds- deal with missed opportunities/rejection
• Capture the Cretan Bull- equally hard, deal with success on the rare day it happens
• Steal the Mares of Diomedes- watch your babies get killed by editors and understand that they ALWAYS know better than you
• Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta- make sure you move your body and eat right
• Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon- be working on the next thing before you get too comfortable with that tiny success you had
• Steal the apples of the Hesperides- make sure you speak of yourself in a positive way, others will be sure to speak poorly of you, you don’t need to put them out of the job.
• Capture and bring back Cerberus- know that your goal will never be obtained, the finish line is moving, always moving, just as fast or faster than you

Just a note for clarity, there are far more than 12 Labours… that’s just a couple, and it’s not intended for educational purposes as much as it is as a reminder to myself. A lot of these are going to potentially feel contradictory, or not true in all circumstances, and that’s because the rules change, always… we are gonna experience ups and downs, and during the ebb and flow of the process elements of this will be void or highlighted.

I think I’ll put a pin in it there. In many ways this has been an exercise in procrastination and that deadline is still there. Thankfully I have a deadline… I better also spend some time today working toward the next one… no video games for me today I’m afraid, gonna have to order a pizza and pull an all nighter…

Damn, it’s happening again.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

M

Below is the link to the Hey, Amateur! Kickstarter! Be a friend to the cause (and to me) and support the book! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sxbond/hey-amateur