hey man, i need advice. so i draw but ever since i was little kid there has always been a someone that was better than me. like they would prodigy level of drawing. my stuff has always looked some stupid doodle and just gets me so down and angry and i feel like i’ll reach that level. i’ve given up so many times in the past. i just wish i had that drive but i don’t. drawing feels like a chore. i want to do other creative stuff. i feel drawing is holding me back sometimes. i don’t know. help?

royalboiler:

I know the feeling. Growing up I always had people around me who I thought were doing much better work than I was capable of— my friends and my older brother. I don’t think I really liked most of what I drew until I was about 30. and by then I was onto the idea that it didn’t really matter.I’d figured out my own lane— I feel like the drawing has to be just something you do for you. It’s awesome to feel like you’re good at something but that’s all on the back end, it’s not why you should do it. Things get all messed up with the internet’s immediate gratification. When I was a kid I couldn’t show more than a couple people anything I did even if I wanted to. 

and It’s totally ok to not draw and go after some other means of expression, everything is going to be hard—I think that ads some value to it but it doesn’t have to be a painful struggle. 

I always say that my job isn’t really about drawing and writing as much as it’s about staying excited about drawing and writing. That’s the hard work. 

I remember years ago, I had a job drawing porn comics and I had to get pages in to pay my rent. There’s that Tenacious D song that has the line “It doesn’t matter if it is good, It only matters if it rocks.” and as dumb as that is —it was like my mantra to enjoy the work and get over myself. 

I dunno if that helps, it’s a struggle. Sometimes all I can do is rewatch the stuff that clicked with me most and spend all day looking over and redrawing panels from comics that got me excited about comics.