Kill your darling drawings
I decided to start over on what I’ve drawn of Monument. I don’t think that what I have so far is going to work for the whole book, which is part of the reason I’ve been hesitant to jump back in. Lord knows I love a labor intensive page of art—it’s a bit of a personal disappointment that people know my books more for overwrought art than for the (also overwrought, ha) stories I want to tell—but these dimensions (14x17) are too big for me to comfortably sustain for a whole book. Also, the story is softer than this. The art needs to be softer, too. I still really like this sequence, though! Off to the file drawers, you good little drawing.
I’ve been thinking of this story for so many years and picking away at writing it for so long that it is starting to become intimidating in a really unproductive way. Holding onto an abstract version of a story for so long isn’t great! You get addicted to the version of it that lives in the ether, and nothing material can quite live up to it. I’ve found myself frustrated to see it come together and the final story, the final art, sounds like I wrote it and looks like I drew it. Who wants that? Not me, apparently. (Isn’t that awful?) The only way to break that way of thinking is to work through it, I reckon. I’ve only got my hands to draw it, and I can’t move on til this thing is done. Onward, with imperfection!
Xoxo marn