You like these monthly nothings? · 4:07pm Jun 12th, 2013
I feel... weird. I was never exactly a permanent fixture around here, swinging in and out as I found the time to be a part of the community, but I always came back.
It just hit me how long I've been on the outside. I've missed quite a lot of developments, and I'm stumbling around questioning who I am in relation to this whole fiction thing. What am I trying to do? What am I actually getting done? What have I written in the last 24 hours? The last week? The last month?
Why am I here?
It's practically an existential crisis, it is. I don't know how to put what I'm feeling into words (a sentiment I express far too often for a writer) and I don't know the answers to the questions, or even if they're the right questions.
I suspect what's happening is that I keep pushing other projects off because I "should" be working on the one I really want to succeed, but that I can rarely (if ever) muster up the will to touch. That first chapter has been through so, so, so many drafts... I'm not sure it'll ever be finished. I've been sitting on the first chapter of a different thing for two or three weeks now, you know. I tell myself that I have a decent enough outline in my head and it's not that long and so I should just wait until it's finished instead of tormenting folks with a slow chapter drip.
I was having tons of fun writing the first chapter, and then I just... stopped. I don't know why I did. I don't know exactly why I'm venting in the blog, other than that you guys deserve some sort of acknowledgement that I haven't forgotten you.
Or have I?
Maybe this is me paying my debt to the universe and releasing all the overwrought angst that was supposed to show up when I was a teenager. Delayed psychological puberty. I dunno.
Maybe I'm falling out of the loop because Steam is installed on a different computer now that isn't always on and I'm not always checking, and that was my tie to my pony friends. Maybe I'm avoiding popping up in pony places and not realizing it.
All I know for sure is that if I want to be a part of this thing, I need to get back on that saddle, and the most important part of it is to write more. I'm going to submit the thing I've been sitting on. It's just the one chapter, and it hasn't been edited to hell and back, and it's pretty terrible, but it's something.
Then, once it's up here, I'm going to give myself a deadline. I've done that before, I know, but this time it's more important. It'll be like a time bomb strapped to the saddle. I HAVE to stay on the horse, or lose it forever.
If I don't submit a second chapter for the thing I'm about to submit the first chapter of before the fourth of July, I'm freezing (not deleting) this account and dropping out of writing until such time as I can make it important enough in my life to actually happen, because clearly if I can't make the time to write a few measly thousand words in just under a month, I'm not trying hard enough. If I pass, I'll set up another deadline for the third chapter, one that's not longer and perhaps shorter, and so on for the fourth and the fifth...
I'm hitting submit now, then showering, checking some emails, and going to work. I might be going out with a few friends after work (there I go doing other things again) and might not be back here until pretty late, but I'll blerg again when the night is done and see how a day of thinking about this has made me feel.
Hey, no one's holding a gun to your head and making you write ponywords. If you don't want to, you don't want to. If you do want to but aren't, maybe you should ask yourself if you really want to, or if you're just telling yourself that.
I'm not saying you should quit, I'm just saying you shouldn't make yourself miserable because you're not meeting some kind of self-imposed quota.
Worsty... everyone has moments like this. Moments where you get introspective and wonder if what you're doing is something that's worth continuing doing.
That being said, you mentioned something about isolating yourself from pony friends on Steam, whether intentional or not. Maybe that's not the best strategy at this point. I dunno, for me at least when I'm going through thoughts like this, I find it really beneficial to chat with people about it, because getting perspective other than my own is always helpful.
Anyway, if you wanna chat, as always I'm available. Hope your work day gives you plenty of time to think!
You may not talk with your pony friends as much, or feel like ponydom isn't as cheery to you as it used to be. It hurts to feel alone, but it hurts even more to feel like you haven't lived up to your potential. It's a venomous, stinging thing that eats away at your smile when the sun is shining, and freezes your thoughts on the worst memories and fears when you close your eyes. Nobody should ever feel so smothered, and though I don't really know you, I wish there was more I could offer than words.
But my words are what I have, and they are all of me. I like to think nobody is alone if they have a friend somewhere. And though you don't speak with your pony friends as much as you'd like, it doesn't mean they aren't your friends. If you remember them, remember talking with them and thinking with them and reading with them, then they are never gone. To reach out to them seems harder than it really is, like taking a leap of faith over an unleapable gorge, falling on a hope that a rope will be thrown from the other side. But there is a bridge already in place, and it waits for you to take the first step.
"Dredgemane showed me what my existence means, for it brims with the essence of all of those ponies, including all of their imperfections, singing and screaming all their hopes and fears. There was no way that the legacy of ponydom could have been solely encompassed by my fitful and subjective little hammock-swaying dreams of the past. For several mesmerizing days, I trotted with them, frowned with them, smiled with them, suffered with them, and ultimately healed with them. Dredgemane has given me so much, and I can only hope—after I'm gone, in both the past and the future—that I have given them back as much as I could, for I will not be able to give all of Equestria the same extent of my blessings, no matter how much I try." ~Scootaloo, from the arguably perfect masterpiece The End of Ponies, which I think you may know something about.
Poniponi can be like this at times: confusing, painful and wonderous. That doesn't make it any less worth it. You are a part of that as much as all of us, and you shouldn't neglect enjoying what you do for the sake of doing it. Whatever decision you make, be certain of it and follow it through. You'll have my unwavering support no matter what.