I’ve often had issues with facing my own problems or challenges. The biggest issue was that it was so easy to forget about them, or take the issue seriously. As an example, my current biggest issue is debt.

Debt is such a vague idea. I can always pay it down later. Another $20 purchase won’t hurt, right? It’s so hard to take seriously. That is, until, it gets so large and crushing, that I can’t imagine ever paying it off.

When I started drawing, I ended up making my debt a character. Debt, The Ever-Hungry.

I play a lot of video games, so Debt, The Ever-Hungry needed health to be a proper enemy. The obvious choice was the amount of the debt. So, every time I paid down my debt, the bigger chunk I took out of its health.

By viewing my challenge as an enemy to defeat, it was much easier to face it, to fight it, and to conquer it.

Every person has their own challenges. Even if the challenge similar to another person’s, the circumstances behind and around it will always be different.

When my fiancé and I got together, he had a debt of his own, Debt, The Inexorable. We were each struggling to fight our own debts.

Sometimes, like us, challenges change or evolve.

In order to better coordinate our abilities to attack our debts, we teamed up. But, so did the debts. We consolidated our debts, and in so doing, created a whole new monster. But now, we could handle it together.

In writing, turning some challenges into actual characters can change you perspective on them.