Where have I been lately? Is this the end? · 2:27am Jul 15th, 2017
If you've been following me for a while, you may have noticed that I've dropped off the map lately.
Why? Multiple short stories in progress, one of them so close to being finished that you can feel its breath on your neck, over 600,000 words written, dozens of stories edited, years and years poured into this account, its fictions, its friends... why did it all trail off? Where did that creative spark go to? Is this the quiet end of Nonagon the Fanfic Writer?
There's a simple reason for all this. Actually a fairly complex reason, stretching back years with many implications that are nigh-impossible to follow, but the long and short of it is that over a year ago, when this decline began, I started doing drugs.
Specifically, antidepressants.
It's ironic, really. Depression is, with little contest, one of the worst things that has ever happened to me. It's dampened and destroyed my work, my spirits, my relationships, my career... every part of me has suffered because of it. Depression isn't like a sadness that goes away in time, it's like an asthma of the mind, crippling emotions and making happiness an impossible dream. When times are bad, every negative feeling is amplified, and when times are good, in place of joy you can feel only a bitter hollowness. Anger and self-doubt plagued me, even when there was no cause for them. It's maddening. Crushingly isolating. And even when you *know* all this, it's impossible to believe any of it. It's so internalized that you spend so much time believing earnestly that you don't have depression at all, you're just weak, ungrateful, under no more pressure than anyone else, and ruining everyone else's lives with your deliberate refusal to get any better. Depression is deadly. If my life had taken just a few different turns, I have no doubt that it would have claimed me too.
And yet despite all this, depression was the driving strength of my writing, and the tool that I used to defeat it. When I literally, chemically couldn't process emotions inside my head, I processed them on the page instead. Depression was the source of the suffocating silence of Somepony Who Loves You, the suicidal angst of Mirror Fidelity, the nihilistic ruthlessness of Death Note: Equestria. And now...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not cured. I'm not sure that's even possible. But I'm... better. The medication has adjusted the chemical imbalance in my brain enough that all of the above problems, while still present, are smaller and more manageable. The machine that makes this body run has had some boards put over it, and while it still leaks and malfunctions, it no longer consistently vomits out toxic waste that infests the whole plant. I don't have to give it constant maintenance anymore. I can focus on other things.
The point of all this is that I've stopped writing because, well, I don't need to anymore. I don't have nearly as much excess sadness that I need to offload it into another chapter. At the same time, in retrospect, I shouldn't have let it slide as much as I did. Writing is an important part of my life, and if I want to keep it that way, I need to find a spark that inspires me to keep it going other than the drive to kill myself. If I was inspired for so long by hopelessness, then surely I can teach myself to be inspired by hope.
I'm going to finish the Mirror Fidelity series. I've been a massive tease about it and it's unfair to leave it this close to the climax. Other than that... I can't make any promises. Death Note: Equestria is a relic of the past now. I barely remember where I was going with it, and any attempt I make is just going to be bogged down by the many mistakes of the younger, more inexperienced writer who dreamed it up. No, I'm much more interested in moving on to further, brighter fields. I've got another book of poetry to write, a school to attend, tabletop games to run, and one more thing...
(If you want to see what I've been up to this whole time, and you should, you should read the following post.)
Not exactly what I expected, I'll need some time to process it.
I will of course never give up hope for more DNE, but at the moment I shall be happy with you for all the other stuff that you keep moving in the right direction
Really awesome to hear you're doing better! That was mostly what I expected – though there was always the possibility you were doing much worse, and I was hoping against that. :x
I never managed to start on DN:E, and yeah, I kind of assumed you fell into a lot of pitfalls of starting authors with it, even if you probably managed to put out something impressive. It being lain to rest feels totally natural.
The end to Mirror though, is something I'm still really excited about and think about every other week or so. Best of luck in being able to pull it out without falling into the darkness you've managed to get out of.
I'll have to look at the Pokemon thing sometime – I actually don't really like the games much, but I'm interested to see what you're doing with it that I'm sure I can channel a compatible impulse at some point.
(did anything ever come of the other RPG maker thing you were working on?)
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Well, I did read DNE, and for all of Nonagon's self-depreciation about it, I found it superior to the original. It does take a moment to get good, but once it does, it only gets better - it has definitely grown with the author.
It's good to hear from you about all this, especially there wasn't much word from you at all for a long while. I had already accepted that DNE was over, but it feels good to understand the reasons why and that it's a positive thing, in a way.
I understand if you can't continue Death Note: Equestria. If anything, I can always pick it up for you if that's alright.