I love discovery, of the world, of interesting people, and of myself. I love the way a great book can take me somewhere believable that I have never been, and introduce me to new feelings and ideas. I especially love when the world around me looks deeper, as I find something good and valuable in the commonplace and mundane, like it was hidden there waiting for me. I wish I knew how to hold onto those things, to soak myself in them. I don't . I am not a great writer, and I don't know how to express all of my deep feelings. I try, through my graphic novel, and it gets as close I can to expressing my experience of those wonderful things, but in the end, it is just the memory of the experience itself that I have left.
With my book, I am trying to express the good that I find, the meaningful and worthwhile and loving things, and I try to wrap it up like a surprise, so it can stand out. At the center of the creative process, there is that moment when you twist something, and it becomes your own. That is a magical place, a moment of completeness, warm and exciting.
I know that those wonders are surrounded by problems, struggles, boredom and mind numbing business. They stand out all the more by comparison. But as I finish a page, and focus on the story of a strange robot boy and his weird, magical friends, I feel some of that worth, in myself, and in the expression of the story.
It is wonderful!
If it doesn't come across in my awkward pages, rotten writing and unskilled art, at least I get that feeling, that I am expressing it the best I know how.
