The Low Point: A Familiar Refrain
I was upset on Sunday evening, so I put pen to paper and wrote about it.
What follows is what I wrote. (An aside: stay tuned, because my Monday had some really good “anti-funk” medicine.)
July 22, 2001
Why am I afraid all the time?
Take today, for instance. I was in the “How to Write for Star Trek” seminar at the Comic-Con. One of the panelists had announced at the beginning that they (the panelists) would open the floor up to semi-actual “pitch sessions” partway through. I racked my brain trying to come up with something good, something worthwhile.
I had a decent idea in my head by the time they called for volunteers. But I did not - could not - raise my cold, sweaty hand. The first volunteer was someone who’d actually worked with one of the panelists and who had experience in pitching. He was good. I was intimidated.
The next couple of volunteers were okay at best. They had good ideas, but they couldn’t figure out to make their pitches about the characters. I was a little less intimidated, and yet my hand stayed down.
They finally called for the last couple of participants. At last, I raised my hand. But by then, I was too late - they called on two gents who’d had their hands up the entire time. (Not so incidentally, one of those guys had an awesome pitch, and was offered the opportunity to go pitch his idea for real.)
And I just sat there, watching.
I sulked through the dealer’s area afterward, brooding over what kept my hand down. I kept coming back to the same answer I always do:
FEAR.
I’m still not wholly sure what it is I’m afraid of! Is it that I’m afraid of looking stupid? Is it that I’m afraid of having my closest friends and family ashamed of my work? Or is it that I’m afraid that when I try I will fail?
It’s like I’m of two minds on the matter: The logical, rational side of my psyche knows that I can do this. The emotional, reactive side will do anything to keep from getting hurt.
But I know that I can’t exist, I can’t thrive like this; a life lived in fear is a life unlived. Something needs to change.
I need to change.
I also had the following addendum (which I didn’t finish) a little bit later, where I think you can sense that I’m starting to get over it (and myself):
Okay, so what’s my plan?
I want to create a “portfolio packet” to showcase my writing for prospective comics jobs. In addition to writing samples for inside the packet (which I need to create because they don’t exist yet), I also want to have strong design elements, kind of like the promotional materials I’ve seen in those books in Barnes & Noble. (Also, a reply card / SASE-thing is essential.) I could use kevinbarrow.com to support this.
So to do this, clearly I need to practice writing actual comic scripts. In order to learn how the stories are broken dowm, I could “reverse-engineer” comics scripts from finished comic books.
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