2017 was very much a year of writing for me, well, of reading and writing. Having been accepted into studying illustration at Camberwell, I put aside working on my portfolio and decided to work more on further developing my ideas. I returned to the manuscript that I had aimed to complete in November and set about finishing it.
To be sure, not all went to plan...
I expected to complete my manuscript given another month. Afterwards I planned to move on to creating a number of illustrations that had been tossing around in my head, hoping to improve my dismal portfolio. The story I was working on, Stand on Titan, proved to be far more challenging to complete than I had anticipated. The months stretched on and on, I filled my unproductive hours with more and more reading, and I seemed no closer to reaching my goals. Eventually I absorbed enough research to serve as inspiration (or perhaps sufficient dissatisfaction to serve as motivation) and completed the first draft in mid-May.
Late or not, this was a big deal for me. I hadn't really written much, certainly not a complete story, in ages, and at some 125,000 words (around 400 pages in a paperback novel format), Stand on Titan is easily the longest piece of fiction I have ever completed. It is still just a first draft manuscript and as such has a lot of problems to sort out (and therefore a lot of revisions ahead), but I remain quietly proud of it. I'm always spinning up in various directions, never seeing things through, at least in regards to my own personal projects.
Rather than dive into my art and make up for lost time though, I followed up the completion of my manuscript with... more writing! Worse still, I didn't start writing one of the planned short stories I had lined up and instead began work on an entirely new story for which I had no outline or prior idea of. A short story at only some 15,000 words it served as useful writing practise and outlet for my hands which had grown accustomed to typing.
I continued writing throughout the year, generating new story ideas fuelled in part by all the reading I was doing. I went on to complete a script for another short story, this one intended as a graphic novel or animation and revisited old story ideas of mine (some very old) with new ideas and clarity as to how to carry them forward and give them an original spin.
However, I would have liked to be more productive on the writing front. I had hoped to not only complete my first draft but also to get a revision or two in, and while I did complete a reading of the draft and wrote up notes, I didn't get around to a second draft, sidetracked as I was by other stories and projects. As I headed off for the UK in September I began almost uncontrollably working on another story. I've kept working on it, but feel that I should have focused more on it and completed it by now.
On the art front 2017 was a lot more quiet for me. I picked up and worked my way through Scott Robertson's How to Draw which proved quite useful for drawing objects with form and perspective but beyond that I undertook no systematic self-study. I did a decent amount of sketches, a lot of them idea generation, but was very negligent in the area that I really needed to work on - executing my ideas at a finished level of quality.
2017 also saw the death of my family dog, Thunder, at the age of 16. Thunder had been failing in health for some time, but he was still happily going through his daily walks and seemed to have more good days than bad. When Thunder started to go it was rather sudden and late at night and too late to get a hold of the vet. Sadly he suffered throughout the whole night before going in the early morning. This was a failing on my part. I spent the most time with Thunder in his last days and knew that he needed to be put down. Still I could not bring myself to do it so long as he seemed alright. I set little triggers for myself: such as if he refused to go for a walk two days in a row then that would be it, but he never crossed that line. Mostly, I didn't want to have to take responsibility for ending his life. Even up to his last day, he went for a walk as always and seemed alright. But watching Thunder suffer painfully in his last moments was excruciating... I failed to take responsibility and now I couldn't end his suffering, it was literally too late. There wasn't the gradual deterioration that I had hoped for that would tip me off that it was time. It was sudden and violent. It's a hard lesson to learn, but I realise I have to take more initiative in acting on what I know is coming, and not delay tough decisions.
With the fall came a change in setting and routine with me moving to London in the UK to study illustration. Settling in has proved quite difficult for me as in spite of the fact that I've lived in plenty of different places, I've never really "settled" anywhere, and so it has been a learning experience for me trying to form connections.
The change of setting also seemed to strike a blow to my self-confidence and I found myself becoming very doubtful about just about everything. It didn't help that I took the not-uncommon English greeting of "You alright?" as an indication at first that everyone thought that there was something wrong with me.
Studies proved difficult too, first adjusting to the work schedule and getting back into the groove of drawing, and then coming to terms with the amount of reading and lectures I was in store for. My experiences with my studies have seemingly been one series of disappointments after another. I've resolved in the new year to double my efforts in taking charge of my education and focusing on learning what I want to learn, but I've also begun to realise the possibility that there is no longer anything academia can teach me that I want to know. The heavy-emphasis on self-directed study, intended to cultivate independent work ethic, has also caused me to call into the question the value of my studies, as the thought has recurred to me that I could simply be struggling on my own in a work setting rather than an academic one with at least a remote possibility of being paid and no tuition fees.
In the fall I started an Instagram, not a big deal, but for me, someone terrified of social media, it was a bit of a big deal. I managed to complete Inktober 2017, ending up with more than 31 sketches. Keeping pace proved difficult, as I was often cramming my inking to the very end of the day, sometimes well into the early hours of the morning, but it ended up being some of the more substantial artwork I completed that month. It was good to follow through with the challenge and to develop often what had been small sketches into more complete ink illustrations. Coming out of it though I find that I haven't kept a good pace in putting up more content, often hampered by my lack of experience using colour, or in advancing a sketch beyond a fairly preliminary stage.
I enter 2018 with no shortage of projects I want to complete and a certain amount of scepticism about whether I am any better off continuing in my studies than on my own. I feel that it is still too early to make a judgement, but one lesson that I have struggled to learn, first with my studies at Waterloo (continuing with them beyond the second year), then with my job after graduation (continuing with it for the length of time I did), and most recently with my family dog, it is that I know what I need to do internally much earlier than I am willing to admit, and hesitation is counter-productive. And as I rapidly approach my 30th birthday, I feel heavily the spectre of my own mortality and a certain dizziness at all I want to accomplish and how little time I have left to do so. I can ill-afford to spend time on things that I don't care about. I've already wasted most of my life, I've got to work to make sure I don't waste whatever little I have left.
