How To Deal With Fear Of Success

[RachelArmington]

@davidhohn Yes, Denril is a synthetic paper like Yupo, but with better tooth. It’s great for ink, although smudgy as it’s plastic. I always thought it would be cool to do a watercolor comparison between Yupo and Denril.

Cool story about the Little (jpeg) Dutch Boy. Good People are out there.

This whole copyright discussion makes me wonder about other ways of claiming ownership: how many of us out there tag digital images with our names before uploading them onto websites? Does tagging matter for social media?

[donnamakesart]

I wrote this question months ago and realized how vague and sad it sounds Since the letter was going to be read on the podcast, I thought a short question would be respectful of everyone’s time but if you really want to hear my praise all day, I’ll shoot you guys a novel-long one in my next email

Each of you gave really solid advice. @Lee-White nailed it when he said I was stuck on an idea of defining what “being an illustrator” actually meant and feeling overwhelmed with the jobs being thrown my way. Breaking down the process and figuring out what I enjoy most is an awesome idea I really love how you problem solve everything like a scientist — through meticulous process of elimination that’s at odds with your squirrel like energy haha. Out of the three, I have personally found your teaching style and advice the best for me

It was a confidence booster to hear the @Jake-Parker say I’ve got what it takes to be an illustrator. I was squealing on the inside haha. I’ve followed you on Youtube for years and have deep respect for you as a professional artist Early on, I really struggled because I wasn’t skilled enough. I never thought finding my “Why” or my “vision” would be equally hard Same as you, I started out as an animator too! And have since been a generalist branching out to new thing, accepting whatever jobs came my way. Because of that, I haven’t been fallen short of work, but I’ve reached a point where I want to niche down, focus in on what I want to do the most. Perhaps this would be an interesting topic for another podcast like a “Jack of All Trades or Master of One” the pros and cons of being a generalist + how to niche down haha.

@Will-Terry is definitely the heart in your 3 point perspective. Likewise, I’ve listened to your Youtube channel and always felt inspired by your interviews and personal journey I tend to be overly serious and purpose-driven in all things but especially in my art work. It’s easier to tell myself “I’m making art to show an art director” vs “I’m making art to please myself” but I’m learning that you don't always need to have practical reasons for making art. It just needs to be a meaningful experience/ project to you

If I would summarize the answer, it would be this: “you’ve got to make art for yourself while enjoying each step of the process towards a bigger goal so you can motivate yourself to do the work ”

Thank you Lee, Jake, and Will for answering my question Feeling very encouraged and motivated indeed

[Randi Gordon]

@RachelArmington said in How To Deal With Fear Of Success:

@Randi-Gordon I’m a few months behind in my podcast-listening, so I haven’t listened to this particular episode yet. But…

You’ve probably heard about imposter syndrome (which can lead people to self-sabotage) as there has been so much discussion about it the last few years.

Specific to what you’ve written though: Have you ever revisited the dummy you submitted to the publisher? Were you comfortable with how you handled everything? Was there a page turn or transition or anything else that you felt you hadn’t exactly nailed as well as you would’ve liked? Have you considered just reworking and submitting it to other publishers?

Sometimes intuition kicks in and we instinctively make the right decisions even if the logic behind it doesn’t come for years after. As far as the publisher that interviewed you, were they asking you to change what you considered to be a wordless picture book by adding text (you said you hadn’t written a manuscript for it). Or was there anything during the interview that might have turned you off a bit towards them (i.e. spinach in the art director’s teeth)?

Even just getting so much feedback from a publisher is a success.

Your success isn’t contingent on how much or how little you family supports you. It may be a struggle emotionally, but in the end it’s up to you.

Thanks for your thoughtful response, @RachelArmington, much appreciated. I hadn’t thought of imposter syndrome, really ought to do a deep dive into that. I suspect it dovetails sharply with “fear of success.”

My book dummy at the time consisted of about a dozen pages, maybe half a book, because A. I hadn’t finished writing it and B. I was CLUELESS at the time about submissions and book dummies. In retrospect it’s a miracle I got any response at all. The art director I met with was extremely encouraging, and said she couldn’t wait to read the rest of the story. I couldn’t bear to tell her it didn’t exist yet, so I nodded and said I’d send it along right away. Then I just… collapsed, for all the reasons mentioned.

I suppose it’s worth a look at that story, if only to figure out what was attractive enough about it to warrant a response from a Top 5 children’s publisher, which, if I’m honest, the significance of which was truly lost on me as a total newbie. I just had no idea back then how great it was to even get a callback. The fact that my folks (and husband at the time) were so unimpressed only confused me more, I guess. Never listen to your parents!!

[Jules]

Wow this was a great podcast episode! This past school year I had a major 15 piece project that I had to complete and it left me feeling burnt out. I had a lot of people say great things about it, but they left me with a sort of fear of success that my next year’s project will fall short. Because of this pressure and some leftover burn out, I have been avoiding next years art project despite a lot of ideas that I am excited about working on. Every time I sit down I just freeze up.
Has this happened to anyone else? What do you do to move past it?

[Laurel Aylesworth 0]

@Lee-White Thank you for your response to Donna's letter. I'm in the midst of my first paid picture book project and I'm freezing up a bit with all the white noise that comes from the pressure I put on myself. It's such a creativity killer. Each stroke of my pencil is immediately put into question by my inner art director. That said, I'm taking your advice on focusing on the parts of the process I enjoy and if it's not perfect, that's fine, as long as I know I enjoyed it and did my best.

[davidhohn]

@RachelArmington

This whole copyright discussion makes me wonder about other ways of claiming ownership: how many of us out there tag digital images with our names before uploading them onto websites? Does tagging matter for social media?

You know I love me some copyright discussion!
But can you clarify what you mean here?
Tagging as in hidden metadata imbedded in the file or putting your name somewhere visibly on the image posted? Or something else entirely?

For me putting your name visibly (but unobtrusively) on images posted online (portfolio website, FB, IG, Twitter etc) isn't about claiming ownership.

At least not in terms of: "This is MINE. Don't TOUCH!!"

Rather it's: "Hey, do you like this image? Want more? Go here!(my website) Or google this name! (mine)"

[NicolaSchofield]

I have an image of a gorgeous painting that I would love to buy a print of but I can't find it anywhere There is nothing on the image to help me find the artist. Reverse image search sometimes helps in these situations but not always. (Pinterest is a huge pain when trying to trace image sources!)

I also remember reading that some art directors will be shown images out of context - someone in the office will put together a PowerPoint of images from illustrators they're considering for a project and then this will get passed around and images will be taken out and shown to other people for their projects, etc, etc

My takeaway was that you need to assume your images will be seen in isolation and make it super easy for people who want to hire you to find you and contact you.

I'm still not very good at doing this though - it feels kinda weird to put my name on each image in a portfolio. (I've just had a look at how you do it on your website @davidhohn and it's super subtle - I shall follow this example!)