The Comics Reporter has a terrific interview with Lynda Barry that is about a lot of things, but perhaps mostly about the creative process. What makes the creative process "work" is pretty fucking enigmatic, but Barry gets at some of the marrow of it here. "There is a specific feeling, a state of mind that happens when the strip starts to roll." She also writes about being rejected by editors, and struggling to do what she wants to do, and what it's like when you have been doing what you do forever and you still aren't sure it's right. It's hard. I haven't been doing what I do for as long as Barry, but it's been a pretty long time, a dozen years, and I'm fucking exhausted. Sometimes I think it's easier to do what I do, and sometimes I think it's harder. It is exceptionally difficult for me to find a place to do what I want to do and keep afloat. And right now? Right now, I feel like I'm drowning. Last night I had a dream I was touring a prison for midgets, and I don't think I even want to know what that means. What's tough is not knowing if you've come so far or if you've crawled a few feet. Yesterday someone I don't know wrote me an email and near the end it said: "Please keep writing your book. After reading your blog for this long, I know how important that book is to you. Your readers are rooting for you." And I am. I am I am I am. I am really fucking trying.
