How to Get Moving

Chapter 1
COMIC CHALLENGES

I’ve been going through a lot while you’ve been gone.
Where have you been?
I’ve missed you.
 
I know, I haven’t been in touch for a while.
But I feel a little let down, as if you left me. 
Isn’t it strange each of us sees him/herself as the center of the universe?

Anyway, I’m so glad we’re back together.
I’ve been through a lot since we last met.
 
Here’s what’s happened:
Some of you said some nice things about my second post, [Dream of the Magic Remotes].
I took a chance and allowed myself to feel pleased I’d created something kind of cool.

​Immediately I felt there's no way I can create anything as cool the next time.
Not now.  Probably not ever.

The likelihood is less than Match.com replacing Tinder as the millennials’ top dating app.

​Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that.
Would you believe a lot more complicated?
 
I started to draw Dream of the Magic Remotes last year. 
It was taking me a really, really long time. 
 
It was the first full comic I’d ever drawn.
 
Comics look easy, until you try to tell a story by cramming all your words and pictures into the rigid confines of identical panels.
Disaster threatens at every turn.
 
For example, your drawing is too big .  Or too small.

​You can work really, really hard, and still fail miserably, unless you can learn to think inside the box.
 
When you chop up your story into little bits, it’s subject to unanticipated fluctuations in your mental state that derail your productivity and wreak havoc on your innocent, unsuspecting characters:

 When you are comic challenged, your sleep is disturbed by nightmares that confirm it is your destiny to be haunted by your comic drawing incompetence for the rest of your life:

​If you are fortunate enough to be in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, you can discuss your comic failure nightmares with your analyst. In no time at all your nightmares will be transformed into comic success dreams:

Did I mention in a previous post that in psychoanalysis you have to tell the truth?

“Yes you did.  Blog Start Terror, June 15, 2018.”

You’re impossible! Are you an untreated obsessive-compulsive, or do you just take me too seriously?
 
Alright, I just lied again. It might take some time for your nightmares to be transformed by psychoanalysis.
 
Doesn’t everything really worthwhile take time and effort?
Was Rome built in a day?
​
Did Einstein write the three key papers explaining how the universe works immediately after taking his first breath?

​No!  It took him 25 whole years, and he was super smart.
 
Psychoanalysis takes a lot less time than that! 
 
It isn’t so bad that it takes some serious time and effort to turn your nightmares into dreams.

​Lots of good things happen along the way, like turning some of your nightmares into dreams.
 
By the time you say good-bye to your analyst, some of your most cherished dreams will have become real, like the Velveteen Rabbit’s. *

​I get such a thrill out of sharing my favorite books, I'm tempted now to mail you a copy of the The Velveteen Rabbit if you send me your address.
 
Please don’t do this.
 
Nightmare scenario: 
I can’t resist sending you a copy.
You love Velveteen Rabbit (V.R.) so much, you write about it on Facebook.
Pretty soon thousands of people are sending me their addresses, expecting me to mail them their free copy.
 
The IRS becomes suspicious when I list over $150,000 of V.R. purchases as a business expense. 

Every time I send out a copy I’m moved to relive my V.R. experience by listening to the Meryl Streep recording.

Each time I listen, especially to the ending, I get teary remembering reading V.R. to my children and thinking about how they grew up so fast and how love makes things real.
 
I shed so many tears I get severely dehydrated, which leads to a serious medical condition.
 
My serious medical condition takes up so much time and energy, I have to discontinue my blog.

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​Wouldn’t it be sad if I met the psychically daunting Comic Challenge and then had to stop writing my blog because of a devastating medical condition secondary to severe dehydration?
 
We’d miss getting together on Square One and a Half, wouldn’t we?
 
Seriously, please don’t send me your address.
 
Hmm…  Come to think of it, maybe I can avert this disaster by consulting my psychoanalyst before my sadness completely overwhelms me.
 
Let’s see how this plays out:

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​Seriously, don’t send me your address.

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Notes
 
*The Velveteen Rabbit is on my Ten Favorite Children’s Books list.  You can read the whole thing at [Velveteen Rabbit digital]
If you want to hold it in your hands, this version has the most beautiful illustrations:
[Velveteen Rabbit illus Santore]
If you want to hear Meryl Streep reading it, with music by George Winston:
[Velveteen Rabbit, Streep]

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