I’ve been struggling :/

The last couple of weeks have been hard, with lots of #ADHDStruggles.

No daily rhythm, skipped lunches, late dinners/snacks, sleep completely erratic, spotty exercise, no creative efforts at all, and quite a bit of brain fog. #ADHD can really suck.

I’ve been adrift since submitting a #graphicNovel pitch in early November. Things seemed to be going well up to that point. I’d just stopped #therapy; I felt good but needed a different therapist. And then immediately had some serious personal stress that made working on the pitch really hard, to the point that I dropped the art and ended up with a mediocre pitch. I know it was a crap pitch but I felt insanely relieved after hitting send.

Not hearing from a single agent drove home the point that making a living in #comics is hard. That was the only project meant for traditional #publishing, where even getting a book signed means a paltry advance that would do nothing to solve the big problem: working to pay the bills while needing to work a 2nd full time job (for at least 2 years) to create the graphic novel.

The idea of getting paid pennies to work your ass off for a book that doesn’t sell (because publishers won’t market most books) is dumb. Better to take the #webcomics route, be in control, work at your own pace, and grow organically.

But since that submission, I’ve been lost because my obsessive focus for two years was gone. I allowed myself time to just be and see what happened. And I know, from making comics, that my creative blocks are caused by a problem with the story/storytelling. So it’s likely that I need to unravel what’s going on.

At this moment I actual feel a lot like I did before starting #adderall. I know people have been wondering online if the meds are less effective, but that could be any number of things: tolerance (though I feel a lot worse than I did in December before my dose was increased), sleep, nutrition, exercise, etc.

On the plus side, I’m taking an entrepreneurial intensive for creators by Triangle Art Works. I went to a happy hour the earlier this week and enjoyed talking to other creators in person. And exercises for the first class were pretty interesting. So I’m just gonna go with the flow and try to journal more consistently to figure out what’s going (I’d studiously avoided it for 3w before this weekend, so I was aware that I was avoiding things intentionally).

ADHD struggles suck.