Break
- Ran Michael Ekman
- Jul 27, 2021
- 3 min read
*** Funnily enough, working on this entry made me take a break from the weekly blog, and I stop it for a few months. Let's see if I'm ready to come back.***
So, I've mentioned before that the gay super hero comics (that will be called GSHC from now on) I'm working on is 9 years in the making. It's a bit misleading, though, It's not that I've been working on it EVERY single day for the past 9 years. It's just (about) the time I started to play with the idea of creating it.
During that period, I had times when I actively worked on it - drawing characters and thinking about the plot - but a lot of the time it was also on the back burner, which means I stopped working actively on the story (but still kept thinking about it) for awhile.
There were times I took a break for an hour, a day, a week, a few months. It really depends. Sometimes I was eager to come back and in other cases I felt like coming back to the story is like entering a really messy room, knowing you have to clean it.
But the break is really important. I feel it serve 2 points:
The first is obvious - sometimes you need to take a step back in order to move forward. Taking time off and then coming back to the story with fresh eyes will usually prove be a good thing.
Then the second point is that focused work is sometimes too focused.
Think about it this way: It's a bit like when you're trying to remember a word or a name and just can't. You struggle with it, feeling it sits on the tip of your tongue and you gonna remember any second now. The truth is, doing this - focusing on trying to find something specific actually make this mission almost impossible. The mind tries to help, so to be as efficient as possible it blocks anything that it thinks is irrelevant. But sometimes it also filters out what we were actually looking for. This is why sometimes when you say F*** it, and just leave it be, the mind will stop being focused and go back to "full mode" after awhile and often you will suddenly remember the word you looked for instantly after letting go.
It's the same way with writing stories.
If you were ever stuck in front of a blank page trying to come up with ideas, you probably agree it's very similar to trying to remember a word you just can't remember. It feels so close but yet it's miles away.
This is why a break can help. Interacting with and seeing other things, maybe even work on different project can actually start a thinking process that will ignite something you just couldn't reach before.
In the past year, while working on GSHC, I felt like working on it was too structured in a way that becomes a little too stiff. I wanted to do something that will loosen me up a bit. I even thought: what if I'll just start publishing the story without a full script and just see where it will go?
That idea fascinated me but I also didn't want to "waste" the GSHC on a writing excersice.
Luckily, I have some ideas I'm hoarding that I know have a slim chance of ever getting to production. What if I'll try one of them? What if I'll just improvise a story? No script, no preparation, no outlines. Just role with it?
I have to admit it was kinda scary, and at times I feared I will reach a point where I wouldn't know where the plot is going (And guess what? It happened. I just took a break and get back to it). To my surprise, I manage to finish an entire story like that, and I think it came out pretty good. You can even judge for yourself (and let me know what you think):
I'm currently even working on the second story that will be constructed in the same way:
Anyway, working on side projects proved to be really good for me, and even better than just take a breather to reboot.
Not only that working on the project help loosen me up (a little), It made my creative juices flowing, making me come up with other short stories I can tackle with no script.
One of them proved to be something that can fit the GSHC, and actually created another change in the story that I think could be really great.
So taking breaks is sometimes not only a necessity, but it's also good for the story.
I think the only thing I need to worry about taking a break is to actually make sure I'm coming back at the end. Because if I wouldn't it wouldn't be a break, it will be giving up on the story.
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