Diary of a Demon Dog #21 (Patreon)

Creativity feels like a wispy spirit that you can dance with some days, possesses you on others or can be completely absent from your life. There are times that I tried to summon it forth only for the blank canvas to mock me. There was a time I believed that if only I had all day to draw and write with no other distractions, I would become an art machine. In reality, I need other things to enrich my life and inspire me to get back to creating. As stressful as my job can be, it makes those moments of creativity all the more precious while giving me ideas for concepts and characters. It also frees my art from the expectation of making all my money for survival, a pressure that has paralyzed me in the past. As I’m feeling the spirit return, I want to focus on quality and consistency over trying to sell sell sell all day. My old partner was so obcessed with making money that it ruined the process. As I sit here years later, I think that was the core difference that forced us to separate. With him, every decision felt like a corporate focus group planning out how to squeeze every penny from the fans. I lost myself in that mentality when I was with him. I hated what I had become. I want to get back to what sparked everything in the beginning. I have an idea and I want share it with others. I’ll still do early access and works in progress here. This is more of cementing a change in creative mentality. Why I make something and how it will be shared when done. When my creative time and energy is so scarce, I don’t want to waste it on a soulless product to be sold. I want it to reach as many people as possible when it is ready to be presented. I want to take my time and focus on quality and consistency. I want to make it because I want to make it. I want to be proud of my work and put love into the process. Thankfully I’m off tomorrow and got a head start on my homework. Let’s see if I can dance a little.