Let me describe my current state. My desk is littered with all kinds of art materials: pencils, ink, watercolors, brushes. Papers are scattered around my studio floor- three, sometimes four versions of the same drawing. I’m working from home, so there is a pile of laundry, too. It feels like I’m slowly going insane.

For the last three years I’ve been working on-and-off on my graphic novel, and it’s the longest I’ve ever worked on any project ever. It’s also nowhere near to being done. While the storyboard and the text are looking pretty good, the current manuscript is also a luscious 250 pages long, all of these pages containing multiple pictures that I intend to draw by hand using a mixed-media technique.

Sometimes I feel like this project is holding me hostage. I can’t start any new big projects before finishing this one, and it will take so long to finish it. What if it’s not worth it? What it’s all a waste of time?
Honestly, my performance anxiety is going trough the roof. What if this book will never even get published? Or what if it just does badly? How will I be able to accept that I’ve wasted so many years on it?

When you’ve spend this much time with a project, it’s very hard to know if it’s even any good. It’s like trying to look at something small up close, your eyes are just not able to focus. How to distinguish between constructive criticism and useless perfectionism? How to know what to keep and what to tosh in the bin? If you look at a drawing long enough, it’s really easy to fall out of love with it, even if you liked it when you first did it.

All of this has made me a bit needy in terms of other people’s opinions. I’m desperate to hear a ‘that’s looking good’ from my boyfriend, desperate to get a few likes on a WIP instagram story. Basically, I just want someone, anyone, to walk into my studio and exclaim: ‘Wow, what an amazing body of work!!! This book will be a true masterpiece. You’ve outdone yourself. Leonardo da Vinci would be proud!’

But would that even help? I mean, maybe the self-doubt would waver for a few peaceful moments. But in the end, the opinion that I’m struggling with is my own. I want to make something that is good enough for me. That feels like it’s the best I could do. And the rumours are true: I am, in fact, my own worst critic.

Maybe you should set the bar a little bit lower for yourself. I know I should. I just don’t feel like I can. I have set out with such a strong vision of what I want this book to be, and I’m just not able to make any concessions. If I start doing that, what would be the point of any of it anymore?

So, I soldier on. Sometimes, as George Michael said, you ‘just got to have, faith, faith, faith’. So, that’s what I’m trying to do. Have faith that I will make it through this crisis, and through many future crises that will undoubtedly come.

Here are some things I tell myself:

• You’re learning a lot here. That means the next project will be better, even if the outcome of this one sucks.

• You wouldn’t go to all this trouble if you didn’t believe, deep down, that it was all worth it. Would ya?

• Multiple people, whose opinions you normally hold in high esteem, have told you that this project is worthwhile. How about you just listen to them??

• Suffer for the art!!!!! Trust the process. No pain no gain. The magic happens outside your comfort zone, etc etc.

• Literally no one will care as much about this book, or be as critical of it, as you. In the end, you’re doing it for yourself, and that’s what matters most.

• You will probably look back at this small crisis in a few years and feel nostalgic about it.

• Good things take time.

• Keep going

I think that’s enough anxiety for today. Now I’ll try and get some work done. What project is your roman empire? And how do you stay sane throughout it?