Since my book, The Magic Fish, is coming out kinda soon, I wanted to share some thoughts about how my relationship to the process of making a graphic novel shifted as I went along, as a first-timer. I am adding some neat preview pages for fun!

When I started, I wanted answers to logistical questions. I couldn’t envision how long it would take to write the script, draw the thumbnails, pencil the pages, ink them, format them, and deliver them. I’d never been through the process before!

But I also wanted to be as professional as I could be, and to me that meant being able to deliver on my deadlines. But how would I gauge my deadlines if I didn’t even know how long it would take for me to work through each portion of the project?

I tried asking friends and colleagues questions like, “How long does it take you to do [x y z] part of a graphic novel? What’s a reasonable expectation to set?” Apparently those answers are highly personalized because everybody’s answers varied a great deal!

I apparently just needed to give myself room to understand my own process. My editors were great about dynamically managing expectations as deadlines shifted around. Some parts took me longer than I thought, while others went by much more quickly than I could predict.

Figuring out how long each portion of a project takes within a broader, more rigid timeline just takes some doing. It’s both daunting and a little freeing to know that it’s different for everyone just because everybody’s writing and drawing strengths are apportioned differently.

Now I feel much more certain of my process, and I’m sure that’ll help it proceed more steadily than before. In the end, I learned there’s no shortcut to figuring out your own process, and there’s no real comparing your process to others. You just have to do it.