Time
Habits are formed from what you tell yourself that you are.
I think that we have enough time to do what we want to do. Eliminating Netflix from my life has given me so much more time to work on Deep Blue.
Soul Searching
Having conversation with Scholastic NZ about the target audience for my book has led me to do some serious soul searching to be honest. Last Tuesday I got quite sick. I stayed up late on the Monday night drawing and inking some lines – (a week later I am still on that same scene, wow! This is a thankless task) – and I think I had strained myself, and so the next day I was unwell. But I think I was also sick because of the conversation I had been having with Scholastic.
The term genre literature first came to my attention in my emails with Kelly Sheehan who is part of the comics community in New Zealand. He said Earth's End don't do genre fiction – and though that was a throw-away line he used, it struck a sensitive nerve in me. Was I a genre fiction writer? Am I only a genre fiction writer? I didn't want to be genre fiction writer!
It hurt in a subtle way. It sounded like an insult. Like my work is not good enough, like my work shouldn't be given a platform – though this was in no way what Kelly intended, in fact he has been emailing me the last few weeks encouraging me and giving me tips and thoughts about the comics medium.
But it hurt because deep inside I hunger for validation. I long for significance. I want my work to be ground breaking, and life changing. I want it to change history and humanity.
The instant message that my brain cooked up for association with genre literature was "trash".
I am one of the many "literature" that litter the bookshops, and wholesale markets, dingy shops where no one wants to be seen... Ones that won't go down in history as books that had made any difference. I was merely one of the many.
It was painful – yes..
But it was also very... liberating.
I realised I didn't have to make a difference. I didn't have to produce work that was ground breaking and life transforming. I didn't have to muster up any paradigm shifts. I COULD JUST DO WHATEVER THE HELL I WANTED.
Genre Fiction Writer
And that was it. I am a genre fiction writer. I am young adult fiction writer. I am a comic book artist. I am whatever label they want to call me. It doesn't matter. I am doing what I want to do, and that is what really matters.
Coming back to Scholastic, if I have a chance to be published with them, I may worry about being a "sell out", trashy young adult (or even worse, kids books) author. But I am starting to not mind now. As long as I can tell stories that I enjoy telling and drawing and writing.