My Butterfly Mind

Senryu poetry comics on creating and striving

In those rare moments when a piece of art arrives fully formed, I feel like I’m not working hard enough.

How does this instantaneous creativity happen? Why can’t my process be this easy all the time?

It’s hard to concentrate on a task when the world is unfolding outside my window. So I rush to finish my work.

As soon as I turn in the draft of my manuscript or post my comic online, I notice some glaring flaw I would have fixed had I taken the proper time and attention.

I vow to do better next time.

I am a perpetual overreacher. I was a gifted child, a star high-school athlete, and a straight-A college student. Now I’m a modest professional success in two careers.

Yet the egocentric part of me desires more. More book sales, more social media likes, more literary accolades. A bank account that increases in proportion to my self-regard.

I am ashamed of this unsatisfied quality within myself. It’s led me to make a few embarrassing decisions (as I mentioned in this post on failure, you’ll have to read about them in my fiction).

I turned 40 this week. Finally, I think, I’ve reached a place of peaceful maturity. I’m done with striving.

Then a new challenge peeks over the horizon. And I sprint toward it.

A list of other things that have lost their savor as I get older:

- Staying up past 11 PM
- Very loud concerts
- Drinking more than two beers
- Jumping on a trampoline 
- Playing pickup basketball 
- Eating more than one bowl of cereal at a time

The last item on the list, unfortunately, can’t be avoided.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this feast of haiku and senryu comics for my fourth annual Poetry Comics Month. Read all 31 days of daily comics in my Notes, and stay tuned next week as I share my 2025 year in reading.

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Here’s your Incidental Comics Holiday Gift Guide:

1. Purchase literary posters at my print shop: grantsnider.com/shop

   

2. Fill your shelf with my latest book, THINKING ABOUT THINKING, and the entire Incidental Comics series from Abrams ComicArts.

   

3. Purchase signed, personalized copies of my books from Watermark Books & Cafe, including my USA Today bestseller, POETRY COMICS.