Current mood:	depressed
Current music:	布袋寅泰 - スリル

Death of a Project?
Well, I have to say, it is a very hard thing to come to terms with the fact that you have lost all zeal for a project. My very first comic story/project, Prophesy of Destiny, has lost all appeal in my eyes and its kind of disappointing to me. I think I fell into all the traps that a new comic author/artist can possibly fall into. Please bear with me......

It was my very first comic series that I made a reality (1997/98). It started off at a time when I was reading a lot of X-Men and Marvel comics, but was just branching off into Japanese manga. It was a strange mix of action and romance. It was a point when my comic art was in its rawest form and just starting to go through a transformation. Of course, my work is always evolving, but this was a strange time for my art.

The story itself was something that was way too long and not very well thought out. There were many times in between each issue that we (the girl I was writing the story with and myself) had to go in and fix loop-holes and problems with the story. There were always places we were patching up and fixing things to make them work. Granted, every story goes through that stage, but usually it happens some time before the series is started and not as often as we had to do it. All/most of the bugs should be worked out before hand. You live and learn. It was my first project after all.

I had envisioned three separate parts to the story. The first being Prophesy of Destiny, the second being years later and the small children of the first part being grown and fighting post-war times. The final part being right after the war and the tying up of the time travel elements. In the first part, there were many cameos of children who would grow up to fight in the second part. However, these things came off as random and strange.... I suppose the most strange of those appeared in chapter six. We jumped into a mythology part that seemed especially non-sequitur, but was important for later down the line.
There was the problem of the story jumping too much in between chapters. This was a result of us trying to cut down on the number of chapters to be done for the story. I think the original first part of the story was something like twenty or so chapters, but we cut that to twelve.

It also didn't help that my friend had to move away (quite a few states away). I know she didn't have a choice, as she had to go with her mother and help take care of her sick grandmother. The problem was, our time to work on the comic plummeted hard and fast. We visited with each other a couple times and got work done and tried over the phone, but it was quite tough. In the end, we tried to tie up the story into two extra chapters.... that has not made it out of notes form in over a year.

In a small way, I think the war our country is now in also played a small part in the problem. My story was attempting to be set in present day and the premonitions the character was having were about preventing an oncoming war. It felt like the story was no longer current at that point. The way it was written, the story would have to be altered dramatically which couldn't happen so far in.

There was also a huge loss in readership of the story around the time that I printed the chapters in a trade paper back format. The book flopped and I think that also took a lot of wind out of my sails.

Sadly, I think the project is dead. As hard as I have tried to motivate myself to complete it, I have not been able to do it. I have had chapter ten penciled and sitting at my art station for about a year now. I think the problem is that there is much that I am unhappy with and would like to change. However, after so many re-drawings of the story to begin with there is just no energy left to do anything. I feel like I am trapped at a crossroads that both lead to something undesirable. If I pushed myself to redo the story, I don't think I would have the energy to draw it, but I am unhappy with the story as is and don't want to draw something I am unhappy with anyway. ^_^; Sigh.

Plus, I have Red String that at its fifteenth chapter is going quite well. I am always happy to be drawing and writing this story. And I have a feeling that I will feel the same to the end. Plus, I have plenty of other new comic projects brewing, being written, and just itching to see the light of day.

My only problem is that I feel extremely guilty for not finishing Prophesy of Destiny (though I think any readers I might have had left a long time ago). I think that feeling is the one thing that keeps me hanging on.... somewhere in the back of my mind, I don't like to admit defeat. I don't want to not finish a project. :grimmaces: I have really come to hate this feeling. I don't know what to do.