in my experience it really has very little to do with whatever it is you're drawing or want to draw, it has to do with your relationship with yourself in the moment of drawing. A lot of the time "redraw hell" (if I were to agree that exists) is more a manifestation of forcing the process and needing the result to be a certain way out of insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion, or time limitations.

I believe creativity is strongest and most smooth when you remind yourself of what you want your result to be, or remind yourself of the "why" behind what you need your vision to be. Do you need the result to be good, or do you need your result to say or express what you want it to say or express? To me there's a very clear distinction when I'm redrawing the same shapes, like, 10 times on repeat, vs redrawing something 10 times in 10 different ways to try to figure out the proper expression of my vision.

Whenever you're forcing the process, you always lose sight of what the result is supposed to represent. As a result, the process becomes a representation of needing to avoid failure, to avoid dissatisfaction, to avoid perceived judgment and shame. It stops being about what you're drawing and why you're drawing it, and instead starts being about self-soothing.

Redraw whatever the hell you want, how many times you want, if you think what you're redrawing is a more satisfying result for your expression. However if you're redrawing something because you're just trying to avoid a bad result, or bad judgment (even self-judgment), I'd say sleep on it and take a break.

Apologies in advance, this is going to sound harsh.

'What is different then?' It's not complicated. A computer is not a human. A computer can't think. A computer can't feel. A computer can't experience. A computer can't learn. To equate a computer's ability to copy and regurgitate data to a human's ability to communicate through art is so existentially offensive as a premise that it's inherently bad faith, even if you yourself aren't asking it in bad faith. You may as well be asking me what's the difference between a plagiarist and a writer, because if that difference between those two things is even entertained as a debate, then either you're being made an idiot or you are indulging idiots. At worst, both.

No one seems to debate this when it comes to the idea of, say, athletes. A machine can ostensibly produce the same results as a basketball player, throw a ball in the hoop and score points against other machines. But that's patently ridiculous, isn't it? People don't watch sports for the concept of throwing balls in hoops, people watch sports for human spectacle and physical ability.

It's a mistake to think art is only about the results, that's capitalist thinking in that only the end conclusion of the process has any value (fiscally or otherwise). Propaganda made by mediocre people who think being an 'idea guy' is the only important part of any project. Art is about ability, it's about expression, it's about making history. It's about human labor and craftsmanship. It's about being alive.

I can expand on it sure!

Perfectionism is best understood as an anxiety or trauma response for a need of control through trying to negate the inverse of it. In simpler terms, basically if you constantly control/manage away the flaws of something, then you're controlling the result to be the best possible quality.

Which sure sounds nice and practical, even strategic -- until you account that there is no result of whatever calibre that will be satisfying or accepted, because nothing can be without flaws or critical weakness.

That's why it's inherently a state of dysfunction, because it's not about chasing an acceptable result, because nothing will ever be accepted as good enough. If they somehow a perfectionist does meet every standard they're going for, they'll simply move the goalposts so that it doesn't count, somehow. The point is to never be satisfied. It's a mistake to assume the perfectionist wants a good result. They don't know what counts as a good result even if they get it.

The perfectionist mindset doesn't even recognize what they actually want, they just are highly aware of what they don't want, because what they don't want are markers of incorrectness or mistakes that is psychologically upsetting and reflective of whatever anxiety that's inadvertently being coped with.

I think perfectionism is very easy to develop growing up as a trauma response. Everyone recognizes a chaotic upbringing can make someone fall apart and reject any cohesive structure, and antisocial behaviors mark a symptom of a rough living environment -- but not many recognize it can actually make someone extremely hyper competent, and that in of itself is a symptom.

Basically, a child who seems extremely on the ball with getting perfect grades or scores, with over-managing things to the details and still being extremely nervous that it's garbage, and being hyper competent at things too advanced for their age -- all that is symptoms o trauma, because it's a response to trying to negate what's emotionally dangerous and controlling threats. Normally it's in response to parents either being overly harsh of any visible sign of under-performance, or an incentive structure where the child is only validated with attention if they over-achieve.

You may notice perfectionists kind of 'test' their results where if no one has anything critical to say (that they didn't already account for) then they have a sigh of relief. Not pride or happiness, just relief, because it means they passed the danger test. You'll also notice that if you point something that either they didn't notice themselves (or worse, they did but couldn't figure out how to work out the flaw) then they'll get extremely emotionally unregulated and fall apart in what looks like an anxiety attack. A flaw in their process instantly because a flaw in who they are as a person and everything they're about, and they fall into a panic of existential catastrophizing.

For myself, I absolutely fit this picture. I definitely am a compulsive perfectionist, though not really as bad as I used to be. My upbringing was extremely chaotic and unstable, and I grew up in a high-achieving family. Over-performing was rewarded and any kind of mistake or oversight was pointed out derisively.

It's why trying to assure a perfectionist something is good enough, it's fine, and that they don't have to achieve the highest form of standard -- it doesn't work. At all. That assumes they actually want that standard. They don't. A perfectionist wants to feel safe and in control, and so long as flaws exist, their emotional stability is threatened and left precarious, because it's leaving modes of vulnerability to potentially be used against them.

Though it's easy to develop, I also think it's not that difficult to train yourself out of it either. In my experience, it's not really about trying to teach yourself that flaws are to be accepted (if it was that easy, then it wouldn't be an issue in the first place), it's about training yourself to reward yourself with the results you do have, to understand what standards you actually want for yourself and going for. When you do that, you teach yourself to celebrate and feel satisfied by accomplishment, rather then rake yourself raw over something you don't even really know you want.

Basically, learning to recognize what you actually want for yourself, clearly define what those standards are, and feel extremely happy and celebrate yourself when you manage them. Much in the same way you solve a puzzle in a video game. No one beats themselves up for getting a 'game over', they just get more focused in trying to do whatever is needed to achieve the thing and get to the next part of the game.

Oh! Yes, I remember now, thank you.

My advice was along the lines of if you're practicing/studying at art but nothing is changing, that means the way you're drawing isn't changing, you're simply repeating the process and passively waiting for the improvement to happen.

Artistic improvement has to be an active, engaged process where you're constantly evaluated, analyzing, and experimenting with your results. Improvement isn't a passive level up like an RPG grind, it takes cultivating an attentive relationship with your own process. Working hard doesn't mean you're growing, it just means you work hard.

My philosophy on this hasn't changed at all. I think I edited out of my About page because I felt the wording was clunky and I wanted the general advice to be more streamlined.

Please remember art is for the common man. Books are not for smart people, they're for everyone.

Shakespeare is a great example of this. These days people consider his works to be for the sophisticated and the educated, but his works were literally made for the every day peasant and full of dick jokes. Don't ever fall for the notion that art is for the elite, art is for humanity.

There's no right way to enjoy art, because art is about your relationship to the piece or text or media in your own specific context and what you relate to personally. You have to approach art with the understanding that your experience and context of your life of it is valid, and art will meet you were you are if you do.

I'll also tell you something else, the idea of 'smart people' is bullshit. Everyone's an idiot, and if someone thinks they aren't then that means they're a bigger idiot than normal. So if whatever you're engaging with seems out of your league, it's either because a) you're being gaslit into not examining whatever it is with closer scrutiny and letting yourself be conned, or b) you're talking to a bigger moron than you.

As I said in the previous answer -- my father saying a great educator is someone who can make a complex subject accessible to a 5 year old. Which means that if a 5 year old can't understand it, the person talking to them either doesn't understand anything they're saying or they think there's a hierarchy of who deserves information.

'The little foolery that wise men have,' as the bard says.

How incredibly kind of you to say, 'eloquent' isn't something I hear often so thank you very much.

But to answer your question, I don't write prose. But I am very prolific at writing arguments/essays. I'm an explainer of ideas because of the fact I'm so direct and pragmatic in my communication, so I make a better teacher or debater than I do a novelist or author.

I don't know if I have any tips for style of writing because it's not something I put a lot of thought into, it's really just how I talk and how I organize my thoughts. So to that end I can at least tell you the various factors that make me write the way I do:

• I'm extremely autistic, so 'blunt' is my only gear

• I think also because I'm extremely autistic, throughout my entire life I was often told I don't understand things or that it's my fault for being misread/misunderstood quite often. It still happens very often. I used to have a more off-the-cuff style of writing (and I guess if we chat one-on-one I definitely still do) but when speaking online I go out of my way to articulate my ideas as clearly and fully as I possibly can. (I think tonally this just makes my sense of humor seem more dry/deadpan than it already was though)

• English is technically my second language. Despite not speaking it anymore, my primary language was French, so the cadence of how my sentences are constructed have always carried over. I feel like this is pretty obvious if you know to look for it.

• I've always been extremely linguistically inclined. Picking up languages has always been really easy for me, and I've always been obsessed with what gets lost in translation and the nuances of colloquialism.

• my father told me when I was young that a good teacher is able to explain a college-level concept to a 5 year old and the 5 year old will understand it. for whatever reason, that imprinted on me, so I always try to simplify my ideas as much as I can manage so that the meaning of what I say is accessible. I think this is also entirely why I'm extremely good at teaching and independent self-study.

• I grew up as an ardent reader. When I was a kid (single digits) I often read above my reading level by a lot, and throughout highschool I often would read like 4-5 books a week to completion. I don't read as much anymore because I think my standards have gotten too high and I have more fun indulging in working on our stories, but consuming so much literature (especially foreign-written or classical literature) most definitely had something to do with it

• also, I really like shakespeare lol

Not really. The way I create our stories, everything I do is for the story, not who I am as a person. So it really doesn't matter what stage of life I'm in, so long as I keep prioritizing what's best for the story then it's all good. There are been periods where I paused working on a story because something about the story's execution is no longer working or there's something I'm missing and distance/time gives me the ability to synch it up with it better with fresher eyes and a fresh mind.

Examples of this can be seen recently -- Sfeer Theory I have periodically gone through multi-years pauses on a couple times, the most recent since 2020 and I'm only now returning to it halfway into 2024. But before that I also had another 5-ish year break in there while I worked on Small Town Witch.

Gaze An Eagle Blind is a major example of this, as the characters/story has been with Muun and I since the beginning (like, 2007-2008) and it's only in the past couple of years we're finally embracing telling the story.

If anything, I grow INTO our stories more, but very rarely grow out of them. It's always been that with more wisdom and experience and technical improvement, the stories I work on become more accessible.

The only thing that I struggle with as far as longterm projects go has more to do with my bipolarity and trying to find a way to find some kind of work ethic consistency. Trying to find ways that aren't 2-3 week work bursts before hitting an oversaturation limit has been a bit of white whale of mine, so working on multiple projects at once kind of helps with that but not really ideal.

At most, the most discordant relationships I have with our stories is periods when my personal vibes aren't aligned with it -- like, to work on a noir story, having to think and create noir. But my interests rotate pretty often, I always return back fondly to something I want to see finished.

Sure!

My thought in writing that is simply that irony's primary usage and end result is insincerity, because for irony to be funny or interesting, it needs to deliberately undermine the idea that irony is embracing.

It's the inherent foundation for comedy as a genre and as a form of expression and entertainment, but if used outside of that then it's a very insidious toxic habit of never being able to own or express yourself authentically or without plausible deniability.

Someone who can't represent their own emotions authentically means they're scared of not having control over how they're seen, they need to constantly obfuscate their personal truth, which means they're too scared to see even themselves. And I happen to think someone who runs away from their own existence is by definition a coward.