National Graphic Novel Writing Month, Day #3: No time?
We’ll start with a tweet I saw yesterday, from cr8dv8 a.k.a. Terry:
Gah, I wish someone had mentioned this in advance. I don’t think I can do do #NaGraNoWriMo this month. Maybe but I doubt it.
I sent a brief note trying to get Terry to go for it anyway, which got this reply:
It’s not that; I am in financial dire straits and not sure I can make the time. If it happens, it happens.
This is a common complaint, but still– it’s 31 days. As of this moment, there are people finishing up the first half of the assignment in 24 hours, not just writing but drawing too. (I was about to type “as well” but it might be as well as it could be.)
The drawback is that if you’re going to make this a career, you are going to lose a lot of work if you can’t make time. Because you never know when work is going to become available, and often sudden projects are going to have to be rush jobs.
It’s a cliche, but it’s very true: I’ve seen careers turn on a phone call. “Can you do this job by this time?” And this is for work that there’s no advance for, you won’t get paid until a month after you deliver the script– but it needed to get done.
Sadly, dire financial straits are also common to working in comics. So are other jobs. There are lots of comics pros who have day jobs and write comics in their extra moments for some spare cash or for the creative outlet– not as many now, because comics companies can offer health insurance to freelancers who sign exclusive contracts.
I don’t pretend to know the impositions on Terry’s time. But just make sure you aren’t mistaking “I don’t have the resources” for procrastination, for deferring that story yet another week, or month, or year, or a lifetime.
Remember: you can follow all the NaGraNoWriMo posts here!