When a Fun Weekend Project Becomes an Existential Nightmare: A Puttylike Comic

Editors note: I’m thrilled to publish Puttylike’s first piece from our new regular contributor, D.J. Billings. With a true multipotentialite’s breadth of life experience, including many years of publishing experience, D.J. is a welcome addition to our crew. If that wasn’t exciting enough, this is also the first Puttylike Comic. Hope you love it as much as we do!

It was a lazy Sunday morning. I was finishing the dregs of my coffee and catching up on all the super important internet memes I had missed during the work week. Somehow, in the magical world of the internet leading us into things we would not normally pursue, I saw a Pinterest board about making a zine.

Of course, in true multipod fashion, I seized upon the idea. I was suddenly filled with the energy of a thousand suns. Maybe it was just the caffeine kicking in, but I knew what I had to do.

Without really having any sort of plan, or even a smidgen of an idea where this was going, I pulled out my paper and pencils. Soon, I was ensconced in a mad creative place where time (and showers) ceased to exist.

Before I knew what had happened, I had an eight-page, fully illustrated zine neatly folded in front of me. And that would be the end of my Sunday story, except that in my world – particularly as a multipotentialite – somehow doing something new and wildly creative is never quite enough.

I had questions. What should I do with this little piece of genius? Should I share this? It cannot just sit here on my desk! I had visions of making hundreds of copies and mailing them all over the world for free.

And that was not enough. No! Because if I can send them out for free, why not charge a little money for them? At least to cover postage. And envelopes. And pencils. And ink. Then there’s my time, of course. Yes! I was no longer resting on my creative laurels, I was dreaming big dreams of building an entire zine empire. Money would flow in and I would retire early. I could employ thousands! I could buy my own paper company, invest in scissor manufacturing. In my mind, my new entrepreneurial endeavor was already a massive success.

As the day wore on, I managed to shower and do other non-zine things. Somewhere between lunch and the grocery store, a sort of malaise about my zine venture began to manifest. What happened? I had been so pumped earlier. I thought that maybe I was just coming down from the caffeine.

I started thinking about all the things I had to do and wanted to do on a daily basis. As a multipotentialite, I’m already used to having my hands in lots of pies at once. Even though I had accepted that about myself a long time ago, I still felt a little guilty exploring yet another area of creativity. My time and energy were pretty much maxed out already.

Where exactly was I going to fit in zine empire-building?

I reminisced about the long ago past, when I had created my first zine. When I realized that in fact it was only about four hours earlier, I was shocked. How did I move so quickly from breezy, fun weekend activity to having my own private zine jet? And what is a zine jet?

After some mindful contemplation (i.e, watching a holiday movie), I went back and picked up my zine. It was a cute little thing. Bits of ink and whimsy on folded paper. It had been madcap fun creating it. It put me back in my childhood, where I would get lost in a creative project for hours. Sitting at my desk with glue and paper or an electronics kit, I was transported to a hyper-focused world where hunger and cleanliness did not matter.

As a kid, I also enjoyed fantasies of creating entrepreneurial empires out of my whimsy. I will probably never grow out of that. In my adulthood, I have started to accept the part of myself that needs to be doing lots of different things to stay mentally balanced and whole. And maybe, if I can accept that, I can also accept that the joy of creating something new can really just be in the doing.

Your Turn

Do you ever get ahead of yourself when starting something new? Share your creative multipotentialite foibles in the comments!