Eliza and Her Monsters

You found me in a constellation.

There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt. The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster though, is smart. It's always watching, and when I am cmpletely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. even when I know it's coming, I can't stop it.

Broken people don't hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten.

There are monsters in the sea.

I'm so tired. I'm tired of anxiety that twists my stomach so hard I can't move the rest of my body. Tired of constant vigilance. Tired of wanting to do something about myself, but always taking easy way out.

Maybe that’s normal. The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.

Like life, what gives a story its meaning is the fact that it ends. Our stories have lives of their own—and its up to us to make them mean something.

I'm not normally one to take advice from my fictional characters, but there comes a point in every girl's life where she reaches a crossroads: a night alone with her sweatpants and her favorite television show, or a party with real, live, breathing people.

Disappearing is an art form, and I am its queen.

She drew so many monsters that she became a monster herself.

I learned years ago that it’s okay to do this. To seek out small spaces for me, to stop and imagine myself alone. People are too much sometimes. Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think: I am here. I am okay.

I made Monstrous Sea because it's the story I wanted. I wanted a story like it, and I couldn't find one, so I created it myself.

How can I want something so badly but become so paralyzed every time I think about taking it?

If you want the motivation back, you must feed it Feed it everything. Books, television, movies, paintings, stage plays, real-life experience. Sometimes feeding simply means working, working through nonmotivation, working even when you hate it. We create art for many reasons - wealth, fame, love, admiration - but I find the one thing that produces the best results is desire. When you want the thing you're creating, the beauty of it will shine through, even if the details aren't all in order. Desire is the fuel of creators, and when we have that, motivation will come in its wake.

I don't want to be the girl who freezes when confronted with new friends, or the outside world, or the smallest shred of intimacy. I don't want to be alone in a room all the time. I don't want to feel alone in a room all the time, even when there are other people around.

I do have friends. Maybe they live hundreds of miles away from me, and maybe I can only talk to them through a screen, but they're still my friends. They don't just hold Monstrous Sea together. They hold me together. Max and Emmy are the reason any of this exists.

Truth is the worst monster, because it never really goes away.

Creating art is a lonely task, which is why we introverts revel in it, but when we have fans looming over us, it becomes loneliness of a different sort. We become cage animals watched by zoo-goers, expected to perform lest the crowd grow bored or angry. It's not always bad. Sometimes we do well, and the cage feels more like a pedestal

Monstrous Sea is mine. I made it, not the other way around. It's not a parasite, or an obligation, or a destiny. It's a monster. It's mine. And I have a battle axe waiting for it.

MirkerLurker: I thought the characters were the reason anyone read Monstrous Sea. rainmaker: You mean like, shipping? MirkerLurker: No, not shipping - shipping's great, and I do it all the time, but I mean... the characters themselves. The struggles they have to go through, and when you really love them, how much they affect you. When the characters are good, they make you care about everything else. That's why I draw them. It probably sounds dumb, but they're like real people to me. And this will probably sound worse, but sometimes I like them better than real people. I can empathize with characters. Real people are harder.

Wallace: What's the point of being alive if you don't do what makes you happy? What good is a career that makes you money if you hate yourself every day you do it?

„Wallace.” He looks up. „I want to be happy,” I say. „Me too,” he says.

Made you breakfast. Are you feeling okay? You look a little gray.” I grunt. Morning is the devil’s time.

Nature doesn’t care if we feel so heavy we might sink into the ground and never be able to pull ourselves out again.

My body gets excited without my permission, and it's not okay. It's out of control. I don't like out of control, but I like Wallace.

That's what I like about the internet-that it gives you time to think about what you want to say before you say it.

That computer is my rabbit hole; the internet is my wonderland. I am only allowed to fall into it when it doesn’t matter if I get lost.

The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.

If I like a book, I devour it in one sitting, and then I forget a lot. It's fine with me, because I read them over and over again.