Part 2: Allowing Ideas to Bloom

Join me for the next installment of making a new zine: "Thriving vs. Surviving."

Last week I wrote about the beginning phase of a new zine project called Thriving vs. Surviving. In case you missed it, the post ended with a general feeling of, “I think I like this, but it’s not saying what I want it to say.”

This is a dangerous place for a project to be! I have a tendency to suffocate new shiny ideas until they are either capital “D” DONE or lowercase “d” dying on the vine of partially done project-hood.

But… sometimes you need to give ideas a little space — especially when they are still just little seeds working on root systems below the surface! Invisible progress is critical to eventually creating visible progress!

It reminds me of these pages from my comic zine, “You Are With Me Always” —

I struggle with this invisible progress stage and want to rush to the part where the iris blooms and the worms fall in love! Even though time and time again I’ve seen how giving a creative project a little space can give it the germination time it needs! The more I think about, maybe it’s the germination time that I need?!

Anyway, I let the “not quite right” sketches take up real estate on my desk while I tended to other things, many of which were not making art. Eventually my Night Brain couldn’t take it anymore and woke me up at 2:30 AM to make sure I knew how badly I needed to make something. I fought my Night Brain for an hour or so before I realized that aside from being annoyed and wide awake, I was also brimming with the urge to write. I gave in and carefully navigated downstairs to my notebook, pen, and laptop.

In these wee hours, a new, longer version of Thriving vs. Surviving emerged once I realized what I was trying to ask. What if I’m not thriving or surviving…? What if it’s something else?

Here’s an excerpt from what my 3AM brain came up with:

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The In-Between (definition) - Proper Noun

1. A state of being marked by slow, sometimes invisible growth. 

2. A place to embrace the painful parts of change and make space for grief.

3. A feeling I find myself in right now. Perhaps you do too?

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Huh! Sometimes Night Brains are helpful after all! I felt so much better once I figured out what I was trying to say! Soon I had a new draft brewing that made sense to me. Eventually the birds started chirping, and I went back to bed for a couple hours.

The next day I started sketching out what was becoming a much bigger zine than I intended! I changed the page size to A5 (5.8 x 8.3 inches), and returned to my sketchbook to rough out the imagery.

I love using this big 11”x14” spiral-bound sketchbook to map out page flows. It helps me see a bird’s eye view of an entire project all at once. I may have gotten side-tracked and mapped out a different 8-page zine half way through (on the left side of the spiral). I’ll have to come back to that one at some point…!

In the meantime, (aka, during the invisible growth phase) I had been playing around with some of the imagery from my original layout, including the blooming heart, which is today’s art print download for paid subscribers!

Next week I’ll share how I started transforming my rough sketches into final art, figured out important imagery choices, and give you a preview of some of the pages!

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for being here! It truly means the world to me to connect with you every week. In case you missed it, last week I shared Part 1 of this zine-making journey. You can check that out here.

Paid subscribers, please keep scrolling to download printable versions of the blooming heart illustration pictured above!