Instead of Morning Pages October 11-12

I don’t know why I did this, exactly, but I had woken up as usual, grabbed my coffee, started reading blogs/newsletters on my ipad…and when I came to Anne Lamott’s newsletter in my inbox (because Anne just started a Substack newsletter and of course I subscribe), I was inspired to pull out my sketchbook and sketch out her essay in comic form. Here’s what happened (you can find larger images of each page below if you want to read them, but for now just a snapshot):

It didn’t look like this at at that moment. I just penciled out in the most messiest way each panel —I wish I’d taken pictures at that point—and I was done for the day.

Again, I really don’t know why I created this illustrated essay. Lamott’s writing is SO engaging and especially visual. I just “saw” the images in my mind in her text and I wanted to draw them out.

And also, as a writer (and a former English teacher) I appreciate her take on writing that “shitty first draft” (her own moniker that I think she defined in Bird by Bird). It’s nice to be reminded that writing IS hard for everyone, especially at the beginning. I find myself in that lost place when I write, say, newsletter posts, all the time. It may or may not be why I’m not writing newsletter posts much at the moment…

But that idea to make a comic about it? It just came to me and I went with it and I’m glad I did. It’s true what she says about ideas being like goldfish, and not just for writing—for any creative idea. Too often I let that bright goldfish just swim away and I lose it.

This time, though, I didn’t. Not only did I take the idea of making a comic and make it, but I went back the next day and inked it out, and copied her essay and pasted the excerpts of her story to finish it, even if still pretty rough draft-ish (but it’s a sketchbook so that’s ok!)

Comics intimidate the heck out of me. I don’t often make them, although I have had a steady attraction to writing/drawing comics for years now. I have come to LOVE and appreciate comics as an art form, I follow several artists who make comics…Lynda Barry, Mike Lowery, Edith Zimmerman, for example, and occasionally I have created visual diary pages in comic form (that I have to say I like very much). But they REALLY intimidate me! I don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to draw from imagination.

This little exercise, though (and it is just an exercise in my sketchbook. Without Anne’s permission I would NEVER share this for commercial purposes), this little exercise was super enlightening for me. First, I was so very judgemental about the drawing, especially the humans, as I drew and inked it all up. I wanted to give up a million times—my inner critic was screaming!

But you know what? I kind of like it now! Someone said that a big part of being an artist who draws is to accept what comes out of your hand. I think I’m in a part of my drawing journey where I’m just beginning to let my “bad” drawing come out as it wants…

The other thing I learned is that this feels like something I should do more of—tell stories and illustrate them in some way. Hmmm.

Okay, here are pages in readable form (click on each if you want it even bigger):