"How do I motivate myself to make a webcomic?"

I'm about to lay some knowledge on you dudes, because I have time and my house is quiet at the moment, so I can. Woo! Today, I'm gonna tell you how I motivated myself to make How to be a Werewolf, because honestly, motivation is the hardest damn part.

If you follow me on tumblr, which you should because reasons, you've maybe seen this comic I made a couple years ago. (This comic actually BECAME HTBAW, and if you can't tell, this is proto-Marin and proto-Elias.) In fact, if you search back far enough, you'll see a whole BUNCH of comics I made a few years ago. I made twenty in total. Why did I make twenty comics? I will tell you.

So, a few years ago, I was generally freaking out about what the fuck I was going to do with my life, as you do. I lamented my lack of motivation to my friend, and how I hadn't seriously drawn in years and was worried I would never use my art for anything. He likes to issue challenges to people as a form of motivation. He challenged his wife and me to finish NaNoWrimo the previous year, though I don't remember the exact parameters. Anyway, he knew that I'm good at staying motivated when issued a challenge, so he told me that I had to make one comic a week for twenty weeks. I thought for a minute and realized that yes, I could do that, and accepted.

Let me tell you about the twenty comics in twenty weeks challenge: it works great. 

One comic, every week, for twenty weeks. Deliver by the end of the week. It can be about anything at all, however long you want, in any format whatsoever. Some weeks, I did multiple pages, some weeks I did one. Some weeks I did lots of panels, some weeks I did four. Some comics were about my own life, some were stupid gags like this one, some were detailed, some were goofy and rough. Some I colored, most I kept black and white. The idea isn't to make great work, the idea is to make work. Put stuff out there. Experiment. Let it succeed, let it fail, doesn't matter. 

The idea that eventually the challenge ends is the best part, because it gave me a fixed time to do anything I wanted and not worry if it worked or didn't work. The idea of one comic a week gave me little room for excuses. If I was going to be gone one week, I had to make two comics the week before. Most people can fit time into their life to make ONE COMIC in a week. A lot of the issues people run into with making webcomics is time management, and having a period of experimentation beforehand is a great way to figure out your workflow and how long things take before you jump in and actually start making things consistently. 

After that challenge, how do I face making a comic every week, potentially forever? 

First, don't stare too far into the void. If you start worrying about how you're going to do this forever, or how long it takes to tell a story this way, you'll just freak yourself out. Just keep going, a little at a time. Don't get overly ambitious, especially at the start. "I'm gonna update every day and it'll be full color and detailed backgrounds and a story that'll take me ten years to tell and and and..." Just...chill. Start simple. Make a handful of pages before you put anything online, maybe ten. Get your workflow in order, or at least enough so you cut out unnecessary time wasters. The goal isn't to create the most amazing, best thing anyone has ever seen. The goal is to keep putting out work consistently, every time you say you will. I have never missed a deadline. I haven't missed a single damn day. That's not magic, it's realistic expectations and time management. I knew what I had time for. For awhile, I "clocked in" and "clocked out" whenever I sat down to work, just to see how much time I was taking to make a page. Not as long as I thought, honestly! But I was wasting a lot of time on the internet, so it forced me to focus up. I considered doing three pages a week at one point, because I HAVE the time, but I knew that I'd be stretching myself thin if I did that, which would run the risk of things not getting done, or getting done poorly. I decided on color instead. Keep it simple. Simplify what you need to in order to ensure that the work gets done. Push yourself, little by little, and your skills will improve regardless, but you don't need to set out to become a master at this on the first page. Just keep making work, and keep putting it out there.

What if I put my stuff out there and no one likes it? 

Trust me, this part bloooows. It's absolutely crushing when you realize that no one really gives a shit about your efforts. In a perfect world, you'd put your comic out there and everyone would love it after the first page and you'd have a million hits every day. But you won't. It's REALLY hard not compare yourself to all the other players out there. Look, when I started this comic, I had no fanbase. Some artists have been putting their stuff up online for years (which I have, but not consistently), and have built up a following, so whatever they release is going to get big immediately. They can update sporadically, have a shit story, do no promotion, etc. and their numbers just keep soaring. Don't worry about them. Maybe you'll post your twenty comics on tumblr and get a bit of interest from them, and those people might follow you to your actual comic down the line, but realistically, you're going to be floating free in the empty void of space for awhile. Maybe you'll post a lot of fanart and get a handful of people that'll stay invested in what you're making. Maybe you've got fucking no one. It's okay, trust me. 

If you put out good stuff, people will be interested eventually. It takes 2-3 years to really build up any sort of fanbase for your comic (or anything really), which is a grueling amount of time to be unappreciated, and very demoralizing, but keep going. My comic still hasn't really taken off. I'm glad anyone reads it, because that makes me feel a bit better every time, but I'm nowhere near the numbers of the big players. And that's okay. I'm still in the shallow end. I've done this a year and a half. I'm glad for the people who do follow me and do support my efforts, but this shit takes time.

 How do I make good stuff that people will want to read?

Here's the hardest part, and I'll try and expand on it in the future. Listen, writing is hard, but a lot of what makes it hard is that people make it too complicated and get freaked out. Read some books on writing and plot. Learn how to structure a story. I can promise you that having some sort of structure and some sort of plot goals will put you ahead of many, many writers by default. (Well, that's some shade. Oops.) Give yourself some tools before you get started. Don't plan the shit out of what you're doing, because likely things will change and morph given how long it takes to make a webcomic. Have a general idea of what motivates each character, where things will be going, how things connect, etc. You'll be able to fine tune everything as you go. (I didn't know who the fuck my characters were in large part when I started writing, and that's okay. I figured it out as I went along, and as they naturally developed based on their actions and motivations.) Regardless, if you arm yourself with some knowledge up front, you'll have an easier time and won't feel so lost. 

Writing a story is literally "this thing happened, therefore this thing happened, and because that happened, this other thing happened..." Keep it simple. Reveal your secrets little by little, not all at once. If you're not sure about your pacing, slow things down always. Give the story time to breathe. If you want more tips, I wrote a bunch of resources into the blog post on this comic!

Okay, good luck! Let me know if you have more questions! Go make twenty comics in twenty weeks, and if you want help getting the word out there, drop me a note on twitter or tumblr or here or whatever, and I'll use my measly star power to help you out if I can :). But seriously, if you take me up on this challenge, let me know! I'll keep you honest!