Frustration is the process

LOG 03

- 1:56pm -

“maybe I’ll give up on this project.”

- 5:00pm -

“omg look at what I made.”

Bringing a creative project to life is a rollercoaster.

This zine has been months in the making. I came up with the concept, wrote it, and planned out the illustrations in January and February this year.

I was on a high until it came to starting to actually make the zine. Frustration hit in and I abandoned ship.

Out of nowhere the urge to reconnect with this project returned this week. Within the space of an afternoon I went from convincing myself I should give up to finishing the first three pages with ease and joy.

The swing between frustration and flying high reminds me of a quote from Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert:

“Frustration is not an interruption of your process; frustration is the process. The fun part (the part where it doesn’t feel like work at all) is when you’re actually creating something wonderful, and everything’s going great, and everyone loves it, and you’re flying high. But such instances are rare. You don’t just get to leap from bright moment to bright moment. How you manage yourself between those bright moments, when things aren’t going so great, is a measure of how devoted you are to your vocation, and how equipped you are for the weird demands of creative living.”

Creating rarely feels like magic.

But the moments it does are worth the frustration of the process.

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As always, feel free to share what you’re working on with me. xoxo