Finding what triggers my artist block helps me to overcome my artist block and a lot of times it starts from lack of organization.
I am a stay a home mommy of 3. Each day I create and publish webtoons and comics.
Also I like to create visual novels while blogging more of my daily life. This includes sharing webtoon process tid-bits and how I overcome artist block.
Now I thought it would be fun to write a little bit about what my morning routine looks like. I can’t fully say I’m a big morning routine type of person but I do have a few things that I do each morning. These help me keep moving forward towards my goals.
First things first is positive affirmation and reminding myself of what my main goal is.
The mind is a leaky vessel; I have to make sure to remind myself each day what it is I am going after. Not only that but to keep my mind on things in the now and not in the past. To stay focus on all things good and happy and pure.
I have a tendency to go negative and let my worries from yesterday carry over; on top of that my cares for tomorrow stress my mind. I want to enjoy each and every day because tomorrow isn’t promised.
Which brings me to my next morning routine step.
Prioritizing My Happiness
I do this by being mindful of my mental wellbeing. I’ve learned that the lack of being mindful of my mental headspace leads me towards my artist block struggles.
Each morning I make sure to prioritizes my happiness over everything. If my mind isn’t right then my body isn’t going to act right for me.
When I create webtoon I put my heart, soul in to expressing an emotional story to share with my readers.
It’s a daunting task and creating a webtoon can be very overwhelming because of the amount of work that goes into it.
If my mind isn’t in the right place then for me personally I noticed that it shows through my work.
So I have to make sure to ask myself a few different questions:
- Where is my mental space right now?
- Am I feeling awake and well rested?
- How is my mindset, is it in a positive state? Is my mind and body giving me any signals right now that I need to pay attention too?
- Do I need a moment of silence to get my mind together?
- Do I need more rest?
Why Being Mindful is Important to Me
The reason why asking these questions are important to me is because if I ignore how I’m feeling and just push through; I end up crashing a burning. That’s when I get hit with artist block or lack of motivation to continue the next day.
In the past I’ve had issues before with artist block because I ignored how I felt and drew when I didn’t want to draw.
I ignored how I felt and kept drawing nonstop with no break and pulling multiple over-nighters even though my body was signaling to me that it needed rest.
.I’ve ignored myself over and over all in the name of hitting a extremely restrictive and unrealistic deadline that I set for myself.
My body and mind got fed up and that’s when artist block hit; My motivation to work went out the window.
Overcoming Artist Block
When the artist block hit I was so unmotivated to work that I didn’t want to even look at my comic or art tablet for months.
It was pure torture because I wanted to draw but then I didn’t want to draw.
It was like a vicious cycle of guilt, frustration, shame. The thing that helped me get out of it was actually starting back drawing but taking it extremely slow.
On top of that I had to learn to start paying attention to myself when I started getting that signal or feeling like “I want to stop.”
When I would feel that then I would take a break and stop.
Practically Pace Yourself
At first I could only draw one webtoon panel one time a day or I could only draw for 25 minutes every 3 days. Sometimes I couldn’t even draw for 25 minutes because that feeling of I want to stop would kick in.
Now I could have ignored it and kept drawing because I grew up with this mindset that 25 minutes wasn’t sufficient enough but this would then lead me right back to where I started which was in my artist rut.
So instead I allowed myself to stop drawing and not only that but I allowed myself to stop drawing without the guilt and shame.
I talked positively to myself saying this is good, we got a little more drawing in. We had fun while doing it.
I did this for the next couple of months and soon 10-25 minutest started to turn into 1 hour. Drawing only once a week soon turned into drawing twice a week and now drawing 5 times a week.
Learning how to be kind to myself and speak positive things instead of negative things that I’m not doing enough helped with my mental headspace so much! I am excited to draw again!
Before I used to only be able to draw 1 file and now I’m able to draw 40 files and color in 20 all pithing 5 days.
Taking Breaks is Important
So I likened my situation to how a part time job is. I’ve worked at many different fast food chains and one thing I remember is the resentment that built up against the higher ups when they wouldn’t allow you to take a break or rest when you’ve been run ragged the whole shift.
On top of that when you did get a break after begging and pleading you’d have to deal with this negative whispering and murmuring to where you couldn’t even enjoy the break and thus for me personally I started to become resentful towards even coming into work for them.
This is what I feel happened with my body and mind. If I was only going to run them down but then demand they work and give me 100% while giving them no consideration or positive affirmation then why would they want to show up to work? It’s no longer fun because now they’re being treated like an under appreciated unvalued pack mule.
This is why now I listen to my feelings in a practical way. I speak positivity to myself and congratulate myself for taking breaks and making progress no matter how small with my art.
I want to enjoy the webtoon creating process because I love making stories and if I enjoy the process then I’ll be able to make as many stories as I want!
You can also read the webtoon over on my webtoon or tapastic page where updates are a few months behind patreon but still updated once a month~
What should you do next?
If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment down below and I’d be happy to answer them!
Also if you’re looking for a wholesome, fake marriage trope, AMBW manga webtoon to read to pass the time then you might want to check out Catch Me! Fight Me! Love Me!
