Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá's blog

The middle of the road.


First, you have nothing to show. You start out just because you want to tell stories. Maybe you want to draw them, maybe you just want to write them. Maybe, just like my case, you want to do both. Either way, you start from scratch.

Notebooks are filled with drawings, characters you're so eager to create, to draw and show the world. Most of them are drawn only once, without any story behind them. They were made because you start out making everything you want to make at the same time.

We all start out of control. Control is not a very artistic thing, one may think when picture him or herself as an artist-to-be.

You then realize that you have started more stories than you'll ever be able to finish in about one week, so you probably give them all up and start from scratch once more on new stories you think you'll be able to finish. Eventually, you finish your first story.

And it sucks.

I don't care if my first story did suck, I did it from beginning to end and I was proud of it. You should be, too. But, if it really did suck, I had to do better the next time. And so should you.

That's what I did. I hope.

Many stories later, you'll find yourself in the middle of the road. And that's when you realize you're not waiting for it to happen anymore. It's already happening. Wait no more. You're waiting thing to begin, maybe you're waiting things to end, but you're never waiting things to continue. They continue if you continue. You have to carry on on your own, for yourself, or it will all be over.

The middle of the road is the place where you'll find yourself an artist. You can either be the artist you became, or you can be someone else. Those are the paths, but you have to follow those paths, and not wait for them to follow you.

Life follow the ones who walk, not the ones who keep still.