Sina Grace on Meeting Deadlines Omar: What's it like when you're working for,
like setting your own deadlines for your own projects, like how is that?
Do you have like a list you do, you have like a, like what's your process when you're like
writing, drawing, like doing any of these things?
Is it just you doing it as fast as you can, and as best as you can, or is it like I have
a list that I go by or like I know in my head that this is how it works or?
Sina: Right, for my own projects or just like my own day-to-day like I would talk to both,
I'll speak to both.
Omar: Yeah, speak to both.
Sina: Yeah.
I have a couple projects at all times like Omar can attest to that.
Omar: That's true.
Sina: And Omar also is the same where you have like five or six things floating.
Omar: Yeah, I'm like you and we were working on something together too so.
Sina: You heard it here, we are. Well yeah, and that's the thing too is it's like sometimes
if you're like in a crisis point, it's just a matter of like watering plants, like and
figuring out like...
Omar: What needs attention.
Sina: And so, like with Omar and I are writing a book together and it's been really great
because we're working with an artist who is super rad and there are times where this artist
is like going to take like a long time.
So, sometimes we don't look at the project, and then, out of nowhere...
Omar: We get pages in.
Sina: Yeah, we get like ten pages and suddenly it's like I got to write, I got to like, we
got to like do five pages now just to keep them working.
So, that's one thing but I usually have like a little list and I go through it and cross
it out.
I like to break my problems up into little chunks so that way, I never feel like super
stressed out.
So, with writing, it'll be like, okay.
Like with Ice Man, what I'll do to like not be so stressed out about like the process
of writing 20 pages is I'll be like, "Okay, did you lay it out?" And then I make a grid
and I check off all the pages I've laid out and it's like, "Okay did you..."
Omar: Do you send the layouts to the artist?
Sina: No, never.
I said that earlier...
Omar: I mean, I was just curious because I was like it seems like it's a lot of work
just to...
Sina: But you know, I talk to Steve Orlando and he takes like two days to like, he calls
it blocking it out or something, like you take - I shouldn't be speaking about his process
but anyway...
Omar: He's coming on the show too, so we'll learn about it eventually.
Sina: But yeah, it actually goes way quicker because I'm just like, "Okay there, that's
the page".
But then, the next thing on the chart is; okay, did you type all that out?
Did you like write the panel descriptions?
Then I have another thing that's like, did you do the dialogue?
Then I have a; did you do a polish?
Which is like you write the dialogue real fast, then you go and look at it before you
send it to the editor.
And so, yeah, I just break things into tiny, tiny, tiny little To-do lists and little micro-achievements
to like keep myself motivated.
I was talking to my high school best friend and he's like "how do you keep yourself going
because like you make your own schedule and you get all this stuff done?"
And I basically was like "You got to like, you've got to constantly motivate yourself
and you've got to constantly like reward yourself".
So, I'll be like, "you can't look at your phone until you finish inking this panel",
and if it's like or if it's an insane panel and it's like, you know, like you can't look
at your phone until you finish like inking that Megazord arm like because sometimes things
will just take an hour to ink.
Omar: Wow, that's a long process.
Sina: Sometimes, yeah for sure.
So, yeah, you just have to constantly be like tricking your brain into like loving working
and like loving the idea of being creative but you also have to like be pragmatic about
it.
And then, on top of that, you've got to clean your apartment, and you got to walk your dog,
and you got to clean out the cat litter, like being a grown-up sucks.
It rules, these are easy problems, I hear it myself, don't worry.
I just hang out with my sister and her two kids, I know what like...
Omar: Real problems are.
Sina: Yeah, well, like raising children is just way harder than writing Iceman jokes.
But yeah, anyway, so, I kind of just have to keep being mindful of deadlines and try
not to rush anything.
And I do work seven days a week basically, that's my other thing is like instead of working
like five days a week, 9am to 7pm, I'd rather work like seven days a week and be flexible
with my schedule, so that way I'm never - I think I just don't like, I don't think stress
helps the writing process.
I mean, sometimes it does, deadlines very much help, but yeah, I don't know, I just
keep myself micromanaged at all times.
Omar: That's always what you have to do to always find a way to keep pushing it, and
I like those smart little rewards you discuss where you kind of like, "I'm not looking
at my phone", because what I've been doing is I use Google Chrome.
And so, there's this plugin you can install that's actually called, I think like "Stay
Focused" or something, and so, it keeps you off of like any social media or anything like
that you can put in sites to block, because I would find myself like working on like marketing
or something like that, and then, I would go and I'd just like writing, you know, all
of a sudden I go on Facebook and I'd look up and it'd be like 30 minutes later and I'm
like; how did I waste 30 minutes, just like going on social media?
So, like I put blocks some of these sites and that's my way of like any time like - it
actually is just like muscle memory for me, like I literally just like open the window
and just go to it.
it's on even like cognitive process for me.
Sina: Oh, that's great.
Omar: And so, it just blocks the site for me, and then, all of a sudden, I'm like I
should be working; it like snaps me back to like a punishment or like a non-reward and
I'm like I know I'm allowed to do this in X amount of time because there's a timer on
this thing...
Sina: Yeah, see, that's my problem is I love Instagram and like you can convince yourself
that it's like totally...
Omar: Okay
Sina: Yeah, especially if you're art, if you illustrate it or you know but you also...
Omar: Inspiration.
Sina: Yeah, I'm just like; oh man, like let's look at this person's art, damn, Adam Hughes is great.
Oh man, look at this new person, but then it takes you in the wrong direction,
then suddenly you're looking at your exes and you're like, "Okay, I got to go".
But yeah, it's just about - and then, with personal projects or like things I'm doing
on the side, it has actually been really hard to motivate myself because I'm doing something,
I have so many new ideas after kind of like giving myself a break post "Nothing Last
Forever", my graphic memoir from Image Comics that came out in June 2017; anyway, so I was
looking at the camera anyway.
Omar: Shameless plug.
Sina: Yeah, duh right.
But anyway, I gave myself a break and now I'm like kind of ready again but I told myself
I would only do another creator owned thing if there was like either money or an editor
or something because I just like, I don't trust myself or I want to challenge myself
to do something that I've never done and to be like to achieve a level of greatness I
haven�t unlocked before.
And in my head I believe like having either like an editor or like a marketing team or
something, some kind of additional factor attached to it will kind of be what I need
rather than like what I had been doing; which is like I will do about like 50 to 60 pages
of something in secret, and then, when it looks good enough and I have a sense of the
shape, then I take it to like Image and I'm like "Lookie" and then they're like "yeah,
pretty dope, when do you think you can put it on the calendar?"
And then like, I'll totally say something way ambitious and like not true, and then
be up for like three weeks straight meeting the deadline.
Omar: That's what it is.
Sina: Meeting the goddamn deadline but, oh my God.
Yeah, when I did Nothing Last Forever, did I tell you that like my arm stopped working
and I was having fake heart attacks because I'd been up for so many days straight and
it was like after my life after, I had a surgery and it changed, it fucked up my whole health
system, so like...
Omar: Oh my God!
Sina: I was doing shit I thought I could do before I got super sick and had this surgery,
I'm like, also there's like a crew here that I'm like getting really emotional with anyway,
but I was up like for two or three days straight finishing the book.
I was like coloring and like adding some like last-minute things here and there and putting
on an in-design and something that I'd been getting after this operation in my esophagus,
I get Perikarditis attacks which feel like a heart attack...
Omar: Wow, that's scary.
Sina: Yeah, like I went to the hospital the first time I had it and they did like, man
You tell them...
Omar: You have an heart attack, they're going to...
Sina: You tell them you have the symptoms of a heart attack, man and you get through
that fucking waiting room real fast, let me tell you.
And then, it was a mystery because like they were like, "Okay, you have all of these
things but your blood pressure is normal, so, we don't know what's going on".
And then this other doctor came in and she was like "I think I know what's wrong with
you, I'm going to like fuck you up on Ibuprofen and if you feel better in 30 minutes, like
we know what's wrong with you", and it turns out; yeah, I get like an inflamed heart sack
around my heart or a sack around my heart would get inflamed, infected or blah blah
blah and stress always brings it out.
So, I'm working on this book and it's happening again and I'm like "I know what it is, I know
what it is".
So, I'm just like popping like Ibuprofen, like still drinking coffee, Coca-Cola and
tea just like, I'm like, "Keep it going".
And then, the pain in my arm got so bad I couldn't even like use my hand.
And so, I was just like, I was like emailing Image, I was like "I know I said I'd have
the files in today, it's going to be tomorrow, my arm stopped working, I'm going to close
my eyes, I'm sorry".
So, the book still made it but I gave them the files a day later and that really broke
my heart to have like done that.
But anyway, that's good for me though like...
Omar: You have to be realistic, you couldn't, you had to stop, you know...
Sina: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, but man, that was, anyway, that was a messed-up moment, but yeah,
I got anyway so, how did I get down this road?
Oh, comic books, meeting deadlines, process.
There's always - I think I'm trying to avoid that the next round is all I'm trying to say
is like I don't want to be in a position where someone trusts me to land the plane all on
my own and I'm pulling these all-nighters and kind of turning in something that's like
a product of like madness, which a lot of my memoirs end up being, like there's this
weird like 11th hour magic where I'm like "oh, this is how my life makes sense as a
narrative for a reader for consumption, done!".
Omar: I mean, every memoir I read from you, and I've read, I think all of them, have been;
they've told a complete story, they've really had like; they've had their moments of madness
but found a way to be controlled and finally found a way to find yourself and have a moral,
and I think that's something that's so beautiful and so cool and so Sina.
Sina: That's so Sina.
Omar: That's so Sina.
Sina: But that's life, you know, and life is messy, and then, at the end of the day,
you kind of make your sense of it, you make your logic and that's how you sleep.
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