Waiting for Impossible

A drawing of heroine-to-be of my STILL incomplete comic. Maybe if I stopped getting sidetracked and started focusing on it... but that's another story for another time. I planned to use this for one of the chapter covers, but it's really depressing with her bawling her eyes out. I wanted to put something in the background like those flowing, glowing, lines that people use, but after hours of sucking at it I stopped and slapped a gradient on it and called it a day (gradient is like my artistic duct tape). If anyone has some tips, tutorials, techniques they'd like to share for producing more creative backgrounds, I'd appreciate the help. Thanks for viewing!