Such Is Creativity
Amorphousness blossoms sometimes
Sometimes you just know, but you have to draw it anyway. This is the case with this drawing above. I knew The New Yorker wouldn’t buy it, but I needed to draw it. There’s no idea here, really, it’s just a visual exercise. I sent it to my editor anyway and they did not claim it for publication.
The other night at my book launch event with cartoonists Roz Chast, Kendra Allenby and Kim Warp, Roz said something like what I just described. She said, and I paraphrase, that in each of our weekly batches, we try stuff out. Some of it god-awful. But you have to draw the weird, bad, incomprehensible and unbaked stuff in order to get to the good stuff. I’ve done my share and it was reassuring that Roz has, too.
Sometimes, you go back to these unbaked, unfinished, amorphous ideas and you change a little piece or add an element, and miraculously, it blossoms into something that does make sense.
Such is creativity.
My new book is Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists, 1925-2021. You can preorder personalized copies here!
Roz Chast, and you, Liza, made a good point. This is true of writing, as well. If you don't experiment, you don't grow. And you shouldn't be afraid of rejection.