Over the weekend, I completed a 14-frame short visual story and started working on a new graphic novella. The 14-frame short story wasn’t supposed to be 14 frames. When I set out to make the final drawings it was only supposed to be 3 frames – a beginning, middle, and end. It was my attempt at taking my own advice by starting small.

But, as I drew those 3-frames, new ideas came to mind. As I drew the character and saw (rather than just thought about) how she reacted to the scenario I had put her in, the scenario on the page felt lifeless and incomplete. So, I added another 2 frames. And then another 2 frames.

At 7 frames, I thought, “OK, that’s neat, I think we’re done.” But as she bounded off, stage left, blindly following her curiosity, I noticed that she left her lunch box behind. What to do with that? My protagonist was not a litterer, she simply made a mistake, as we all often do, when we’re excited by something.

And so, the story demanded to continue. Another 7 frames later and I had arrived a logical-enough ending (plus it was the end of the day and I was tired). So I stopped. But now, 2 days later, I keep thinking about the bench. What happens next? Where else could this go?

Responding to the starting

I’d been thinking about those 3 frames for a long time but, like with almost anything that seems like a good idea at the time, actually beginning – trying to get what’s in my head onto the page – is the difficult bit and so I procrastinate. I imagine how good it would be if I did it, and that’s almost enough to not do it.

But, I know now that when I start putting those first few marks on the page, I’m no longer in the driver’s seat. Instead, I’m being driven by what appears on the page – the characters and the setting.

Maybe all I need to do is insert the key and turn. Once the engine is humming, the characters and setting do the driving.

This feeling, of being driven rather than needing to drive, is enough motivation to pick another idea up off the pile and go again. So, the following day, that’s what I did. And now, having drawn 12 pages of Act 1 of a new graphic novella, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ll knock off work tonight and keep drawing – not because I want to finish it, but because I want to see where this story will take me.

The Bench

It’s easy to get comfortable with our art supplies, our ideas, and our path – especially when what we’re doing has people’s attention. I’m a watercolourist, I tell people. I work in children’s literature, I say. My work is characterised by whimsy, humour, strong characters and quiet minimalism. That’s what people like, it’s what they expect.

But what if it wasn’t?

What if I created work with heavy lines and strong, bold colours? What if something I made was more serious and less humourous than ‘usual’. What if I started working in a different medium? Maybe this would upset a few people? Maybe people would stop paying attention? Maybe the cost of doing the unexpected is career-ending?

Maybe the cost of not doing this is higher.

I thought my critical-thinking abilities were an asset to my illustration career. For every book I’ve worked in the questions often begin the same way – “who is it for and how, what are we trying to achieve?” It’s become my core approach to everything I do professionally and the decisions I make in life.

And then I watched 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki and he said a few simple words that have stuck with me over the last few weeks – kids are illogical. And he’s right. They are. And so what might happen if I turned off my critical-thinking abilities and did something even more difficult than logic – what if I worked to get my imagination back?

What if things didn’t make sense, sometimes?

What would the world be like if fish were feathered? If cows could fight back? If the sky was blue not because of the way light refracted through the atmosphere from the sun but because of a faded stain left behind by a celestial squid. What if, for a moment, the world didn’t make sense. What if anything went?

The thing is, as an adult, I don’t really know how to develop more imagination. No one, it seems, teaches that. When I search online I get suggestions for improving memory – but that’s not imagination.

At the risk of using logic to solve this problem, if kids are illogical, maybe I need to do what kids do?

I know that drawing helps me, but not the sort of drawing where I set out to produce an image I can already see in my head. No, it’s the process of seeing abstract marks made on paper then making something of them *afterwards* has always been good for unlocking unusual ideas.

Thinking in ‘opposites’ may help, too – feathers and fish don’t typically go together. Neither do cows and combat. Perhaps a turtle can be as fast as a cheetah? Perhaps ladybirds are a mode of transport. Perhaps a spider’s venom is healthy not deadly. As I write those sentences, I find they are leading to more sentences. Intentionally breaking the rules that have formed the boundaries of our world seems useful.

And finally, there is, of course, telling fibs. Or, in other words, making up my own reasons for things, as kids often do. Instead of asking “why the sky is blue?” perhaps it’s more about asking, “why do I think the sky is blue?” and then just making things up, like I used to when I was a kid.

Of course, all these strategies seem so logical – a way for my adult self to unpack a problem and use reason to generate ‘solutions’ – but maybe imagination begets imagination? Maybe it’s not about throwing logic away completely, but building the imagination muscle so they can work together to produce something unreal that feels real, all the same, just as Miyazaki does.

How do I know if a drawing or illustration is any good? I could critique the character of the line. I could rationalise the colour palette – analogous, harmonious, complementary, and so on. I could critique the composition – is it dynamic? Does it adhere to the rule of thirds? Is the cropping suitable? What does the angle say?

The other way is to simply ask, is there life on the page? Because if life isn’t there, no amount of illustration or image theory will make it any better.

I’m not sure there’s a more useful, cheap, and versatile tool than a pencil.

I, and I assume like many others out there trawling social media, love to see the materials that other artists use and how they use them. I see someone painting with gouache and think, “ooh, that looks fun” and then I go down a rabbit hole of trying to use gouache for a while. The same thought process occurs when I see lino printing, watercolour, ink, soft pastels, wax crayons, coloured pencils and so on.

Yet, no matter what I buy, and how often I play, I find myself returning to the pencil. That small, humble, 50c stick of graphite and some cartridge paper has the ability to create worlds. There is no other material that produces something so quickly, so easily and without the feeling of committment. If I’m searching for a beginning in the uncertainty of an empty page, the pencil will be the tool that will help me find it. It reduces the number of decisions one needs to make in the mark-making process and yet its possibilities for putting life on a page (and just as quickly removing it) are infinite.

It may seem boring but the possibilities in a pencil can be, have been, life-changing.

Every morning, I brew a cup of coffee. It’s not a couple of teaspoons of instant, swirled around in a hot mug of water with a dash milk at the end so that I can get to my work for the day. My cup of coffee takes 20 minutes to make (and that’s after the kettle has boiled). It’s hand-ground every morning. It’s hand poured through a hand-folded filter.

Some might think: 20 minutes? Hand-grinding? Hand-folded? Who’s got time for that? But for me, making coffee is a ritual, it’s a daily habit in which I find an immense pleasure. It’s a multi-sensory experience – I smell the beans before they are ground, and afterwards, and as they react to the water. The sound of the beans being ground by own steam, the weight of the grind as it moves through the grinder. In fact, the drinking of the coffee at the end is less important than the making of it.

Ritual is the art of turning habit into pleasure. – Chiyo, Memoirs of Geisha.

There are boring bits in every person’s day, all the time. Stuff we ‘just have to do’. But, what if they were rituals, not chores? Might that change that boring stuff – the studio clean up, the emails, the newsletter writing – into something we could take pleasure from?

I’ve been thinking about this copyright versus open-source thing for a while. Is it better to offer ideas for free; a gift to the commons? Or is it better to protect your ideas and demand payment for their use and/or replication; what’s mine is mine until you pay enough.

For years, I’ve erred on the side of the latter, afraid to upset an industry like publishing and the people who work so hard at protecting ideas so that artists can make a living. But my heart (and my experience in the software world) is telling me that gifting the commons may simply be better in the long run.

This week, I finally followed my heart and released This Generous Earth. It’s a gently philosophical graphic short story about the human story of separation from nature and how we might re-think that story in order to live more meaningful lives.

I guess you could call this self-published, but it’s far less structured than what the marketing boffins would advise you to do. I didn’t use some flashy and strategic marketing campaign, I just put it out there, “Here, I made this. I like it. I hope you do, too.”

I sweated for a days on how I should price it. $10AU? $6AU? $4AU? I flip-flopped between “I value my work so others should too” and “But what if you can’t afford to read this but it’s an idea that unlocks something in someone.”

So, I’ve taken one step down a path of my love of free ideas – pay what you can. Suggesting a price lets others know I value my work at some monetary level, but it removes any of the barriers of access that emerge from socio-economic disadvantage. As I’ve written before, the biggest threat to the arts isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.

I’ve always trusted that if people had the money, they would pay for creative work. Now, I’m putting my money where my mouth is. This Generous Earth took me almost 100 hours to complete. And, I know it ain’t going to win awards or top best seller lists. But, it’s a story and form I love, and so I’m trusting that others will love it, too.

Releasing This Generous Earth has also had one unexpected consequence – it released me from it’s grip. It’s changed my primary question from, “What will I do with this story?” to “What’s next?” And that’s more liberating and exciting than any best seller list has ever been.

William Stafford’s poem, A Course in Creative Writing, does what great poems often do – reveal to us a truth that we’re too caught up in life to see.

A week or two wouldn’t pass without an email in my inbox – how do I get into children’s publishing? And, the internet is full of helpful (and expensive) courses, masterclasses, & tutorials that promise to teach storytelling for children. Yet, the emails still come.

My story is not like the others. I never followed any of the advice. I never set out to fill a market need. I never researched publishers. I never even thought about children’s publishing as an end goal. All I did was make stuff I liked, then told people about it. The rest isn’t history, it’s a career.

Whilst I do believe that there are some fundamental skills one can learn when it comes to storytelling – structure, character development, the mechanics of writing and drawing – what cuts through is originality and authenticity. How does one find that? Well, perhaps William Stafford already has the answer?

I’ve had a 150 week writing streak going. My writing software has been very pleased with my progress, giving encouragement, awards, and badges for every week I’ve used their software again.

But last week, I broke it. And, at first, I felt bad – oh no, I never wrote anything last week! But then I realised something else; 150 weeks of writing probably isn’t that healthy for me or good for my writing.

The break was glorious. I watched whales, swam in the sea, ate and drank incredible food and built personal connections with small communities. When I write that down it feels like I’ve lived a little – become more human.

And now, with a week off, I’m ready to write things again – write things a lot like this. But it’s no longer about writing streaks for me. In fact, if unbroken streaks are a sign of anything, it’s that, perhaps, it’s time for a break.

This week, I’m by the sea. And, as I gaze out across the turquoise waters of Hervey Bay, I see an island in the distance. I can’t tell how far away it is, or even how to get there, but I know I’d like to visit it; and that got me thinking – things we seek in life are like that.

Long-term goals are easy to define but difficult to attain – a new house in 10 years, a college degree in 5, and so on. These sorts of long-term goals need a lot of things to go right in a world that we have very little control over. Our health, finances, & relationships all need to be in the right place at the right time over that long period in order for us to achieve what we seek. But, the only thing constant in life is change. When things get uncertain and a bit wobbly, our instinct is to tighten our grip – control more of the variables. But is that the best way?

Might it better to seek a direction rather than a destination? An attitude that says, “that house would be nice in 10 years, but not necessary.” Maybe it’ll take 15 years. Maybe 5? Maybe it won’t be a house, but a unit? Or a townhouse? Maybe I want 3 bedrooms and 1 bathrooms but what I see and fall in love with is 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms? Maybe, within that goal, what I’m seeking isn’t a house, but a home – a place of security and safety where I feel I belong. Maybe all I need to do is get to know my neighbours.

If we think in directions, not destinations, we remain open to the very likely possibility that, on our way to what we think we want, life will give us a few other things along the way; things we didn’t expect but may fulfill a different part of ourselves we didn’t know existed.