As in prose writing, sequential art of the comic book, you can sail into the doldrums when there is not enough information or you haven't found the best way to tell the story visually.

I was asked to reprise my father's journey on foot out of China in 1949, so that the rest of "Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale" could be addressed: what happened to his family after the Communist takeover.

I was stuck and made tortoise-like progress.   After a few days, I solved the problem with quick and hard-hitting vignettes told within a handful of pages

In the past week, the writing and drawing have been enormous fun as I work to meet my May 15th deadline.  It's rewarding to feel the return of confidence.

The last two chapters are emotionally hard on me, because I have to kill Third Great Uncle and Great Grandmother and launch abuse on the gray head of Great Grandfather, just as the Communists had done.  As the author of Maus, Art Speigelman, said, it is "bleeding history."

unfinished page

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Belle Yang's Redroom Retrospective: Words and Images