Don’t Get Down About Aborted Projects… Unless…

It’s taken me a long time, as an artist, to understand that some projects just don’t get done. Now I understand that it’s not always my fault and I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. Over the past two years I’ve had a few projects fall through the cracks, and I’m fine about it. Julia calls it the “psychology of failure”. She says that some people who come from a traditional upbringing, where there wasn’t an artist influencing them, might never understand why the world isn’t ending when a project gets put back in the filing cabinet. Not a lot of creators are willing to explore their “failures” in public like this, but that does a disservice to other artists who might not have perspective yet. By writing this article I hope it gives someone comfort about their own unfinished work.

Manhunter. This was a spin-off of Smallville that Phil Morris and I were trying to get off the ground. Phil had written a teleplay and he brought me on to collaborate with it. We got something that we both liked and started bringing it to the powers that be over at Warner. A few months into this we were in New York together meeting with Neil Adams about Emissary (more on that later) when we picked up a TV Guide and saw a blurb about the show. Well! All hell broke loose and the project went from luke warm to cold. We still aren’t sure how it got there or if it was even about our take on the project. Nevertheless it wasn’t too long after that when our contact at Warner left in the big DC film / TV shake up. Phil continued to play John on the show, but we both picked up and moved on not really sure what would come of the spin-off idea. That was that. It wasn’t such a big deal and it lead to us working on Emissary.

Emissary got some amazing buzz behind it. We had distribution strategies that involved Fathom for in-theater and we were talking to several IPTV players. We moved through creative partnerships with Neil Adams, Paul Jenkins, and some of our other usual suspects. To be honest Emissary isn’t actually dead. We’re still writing it and retooling it, so I’m not comfortable saying it’s gone, it’s just on the backburner for now. I saw Phil in October and we talked about some great new material.

I had wanted to produce a Liquid Television-like compilation of animation called Quantum Gate. I got a few licenses and was working with Paul Jenkins to get the rights to Eyebrow Tuna squared away with Kevin Eastman, as he owned it through Heavy Metal. Everything was looking great until we got some kind of weird panicked phone calls from Kevin saying some not so cool things about us. It kind of broke my heart a little, but once again you move on.

Arkham was another series, this time for mobile. I’d already done a series for mobile earlier, but this one was going to be done with the blessing of Arkham house publishing and it was going to be shot at some very cool locations. It was an X-Files / Nightstalker kind of thing obviously based around Lovecraft’s universe. The funding never really showed up and the company I had been working with to distribute it went under, so that was that.

Dan Slott and I were collaborating on a series for Illusion On Demand. Kind of a Twilight Zone concept. We’d retained Dan and we were both really excited about getting the thing off the ground. Dan plotted out several episodes, money changed hands, etc. Around then Illusion got sold off and the project fizzled.

In books, I was writing a really cool charity project which included extensive interviews with internet political figures like Jimmy “rent is too damn high” McMillan. Jimmy stopped emailing with me. I recently learned he’s being evicted. I hope all is well for him,  but that’s life and sometimes it gets in the way.

Where I’m going with this list of shame, is that this kind of thing happens all the time. As a creative you can’t beat yourself up over it. Projects start and projects end, sometimes before you have anything much to show for it. The last thing you need to do is become stale and drag this baggage with you wherever you go, trying against all odds to make this ONE project work. Stop that right now! Refocus and get something else done. Don’t keep pushing that “one” single idea that you think is “it”. If you’re a creative worth your salt you have a million ideas in your backlog. It’s time to take another one out and get to it.

In this same span of time I’ve written two books… Parasite was on several Amazon Kindle top 100 lists for over a year, Tea Goddess has gotten nothing but 4 and 5 star reviews, Mondo Atomic is released and getting attention / sales (Not to mention how happy I am that Big Bang Theory has made us part of their sets, it’s like a geek crown jewel for an indie creator). I also co-wrote and directed Arcadian, which is set to release in Spring of 2012 and has been well received overseas (as well as being featured on Attack of the Show). I opened and sold a few very unique restaurants, for which I thank The Huffington Post and all the other outlets which helped make them successful. I’ve opened a retail store and inked deals with most of the top skate fashion brands. Tentacle Grape became a worldwide obsession with Cracked and Kotaku covering it, not to mention the fan art / mix tapes lol. As I’m sitting here typing this I’m drawing my first graphic novel (based on a story idea from years ago. See the picture at the top). I’m working on a pitch bible for two old friends from the boy band scene. I have an exciting music venture I’m looking into and I’ve written a few more screenplays to pitch around. I’m planning several art shows internationally, and my next two books are being edited. We still have a reality thing we’re cooking up with Adam Sessler collaborating on it and we’re halfway through filming this documentary about EC Comics and the comics code authority. I’m also writing for some TV shows, but that’s less exciting because it’s not my own “work”. Some of these projects won’t happen. Some of them will fail. Some of them WILL work. The only important thing is that I’m keeping busy. That’s what’s crucial as a creative.

The more time you spend trying to force your creations into existence the less time you spend seeing the great opportunities that present themselves every day. You need to evaluate what’s a priority and what can wait. If progress isn’t happening, shelf it. You always need to be creating! You owe it to yourself to be prolific. It means working a hell of a lot harder than you might be used to, but the more hits you have… the more projects get done and into the hands of the audience… the less your aborted projects will matter in the long run. It’s all a numbers game and if you’re stuck only playing one note you’ll never write a symphony.