They Always Come Back... · 5:07pm Feb 12th, 2018
This is... a little awkward.
For the sake of being concise, I am going to try and keep this blog short short, which is not something I am very good at doing. I don’t talk at all in real life, and on the internet I talk far too much.
As some of you know, I have been absent for quite a long time. Indeed, I haven’t visited the site for over a full month, but I hadn’t actually done anything of importance for several more months on top of that. The short answer as to why was I was very unhappy. I don’t just mean it was just a kind of unhappiness that is something when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or someone says something stupid and you can’t get it out of your mind. I had the kind of crippling unhappiness that only comes very rarely and can only be marshalled to leave under extreme circumstances. It’s the kind of unhappiness that affects you so profoundly that it is a sign from somewhere deep in your subconscious telling you that you desperately need to change something.
It’s hard to state how much I enjoyed writing during my early days on the site. For instance, I was formerly able to post chapters of At the End weekly. Sure, I eventually settle for biweekly and stuck to that for around a year, but it was something I truly loved to do. I loved crafting stories even if I wasn’t good at it at first, and arguably am not right now either. I had a life, family, real life goals and aspiration, and just felt comfortable about my lot in life.
The change wasn’t quick. Oh, not at all. I can call to bear a variety of reasons, from burnout, to simple lack of interest in what I was writing, to evolution of my writing style, to real life difficulties and deaths in the family. The crux of the matter is I had started making excuses for my own behavior and was becoming okay with letting myself get away with more and more things I normally wouldn’t do. Think of it as a form of nihilism where I had just stopped caring about all of the things that had given me some sort of joy. My dad died, friends moved away, some existing family had become unbearable jackasses, and I had accepted fatalistic view that there wasn’t anything I could do to fix the matter.
I had tried simply accepting it and going about with my life as usual, but my willingness to accept things outside of my control leached into other things as well. Imagine you’ve done work of your own. You could produce videos, you may write stories, manage a blog, edit someone else’s work, or survive entirely on commissions. There comes a time when you will require a break of some kind due to a variety of different factors. I talked about it once in a blog post before. Just imagine for a moment that you’re tired, angry, or for whatever the reason, you just need a break. You might say you will only take a day off to, you know, just relax around the house, maybe go out for a movie. Man, one day felt good, what about two days? Perhaps you can have a power nap in there, maybe catch up on sleep or go through a backlog of web links you have been neglecting.
And thus begins the compromise by increasing degrees where you allow yourself to get away with more and more. I wish I could classify what I was feeling with some degree of abject certainty, but I cannot. Did I not like what I was writing anymore? Did I just not like writing? Did I not like the people I was writing for? I honestly don’t know. I didn’t attempt to diagnose the cause, I only worried about trying to mitigate the symptoms.
Doing this, a week may turn into a month, then two months. To understand this, one must understand the difference between a rut and depression. A rut is something everyone falls into from time to time, whereas depression is something that is much ore impactful. It is a cocktail of being in a constant state of stress and just wanting to do nothing, where a lack of sleep and a loss of appetite become frequent companions. You just want to do nothing and the physical effort of waking up or even doing anything is now something near insurmountable.
I thought about coming back for just a brief visit in the intervening month where I vanished, but I will just come out and say it. I didn’t care. I found myself going through the motions, not really enjoying what I was doing. Even back right now and addressing it to everyone as I am, I don’t think I am over my ordeal; a death in one of the family I still cared about the very night before Christmas nearly broke me. It was the last straw and I just uprooted myself from the site. I needed some alone time.
Now it is safe to say most people understand when writers allot alone time for themselves for such matters. When I tried coming back, there was something I wasn’t quite expecting. Now that I had actually freed myself from the site, I was making excuses for myself after each passing day. The more time you take off makes it easier for you to allot more time in the future, and there was a certain liberty in not coming back right away, and a part of me sort of wanted to not come back at all. While a part of me desired some alone time, another part of me had grown somewhat fearful. It later becomes an issue in your mind of not people being mad for you taking some time off, but a fear of what they will say when you return. Part of me still regrets this and is tense, at the potential outcome.
I don’t think I am better. True sadness takes time and a lot of footwork to pull yourself out of. I really thought I was gone there for a moment and was honestly open to the possibility and was close to just shutting everything down.
I have felt humble, grateful, anger, some true happiness, and so many other things in between in the five and a half years since I had resumed writing in 2012. Those that follow me deserve some transparency from me, and I hope that my semi coherent rant has shined some light on the issues that have been plaguing me and my attempts at continuing my work.
2017 was truly awful for me, and I am speaking far more than the rampant socio-political strife the world has been feeling lately, but this has been going on for much longer than just the last year. I hope 2018 can be better. It is my intention to go for some of my earlier passion projects and get my queue cleared of works. I want to return to my SCP story and continue my old warhorse, At the End.
I have a queue of commissions I must finish at some reconciliation with people that have been more than patient with me. I have three more clop commissions to finish, each stranger than the last.
Return the slab.
Here’s hoping for a better year. THings are better, brighter, but we’ll see where we can go from here. One step at a time.
Cheers.
One step at a time: it's how you walk and how you do anything, really.
Sometimes, a hiatus is just what the doctor ordered. There's something to be said for setting something non-critical aside for a bit and having less in the system.
Also, have you considered doing some non-pony writing for fun? Variety is helpful for keeping dullness at bay.
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I have, actually. It is a little... fringe, so I doubt anyone but a rare few will enjoy them. I have it set up to be posted on another site.
Hope this year will be better for you.
Regardless of what happens, I wish the best of luck for you. I know things can be tough, and while I haven't had the family issues you've had, I want you to know, that you'll still have my support.
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If I may ask, what is this other site?
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I thank you for your words. 2017 was excruciating for me and I look forward to getting back into the swing of things. I don't think I'm better, but I am better off. I'll settle for that for now. One thing at a time.
As for the name of the site, I am somewhat hesitant to name it. Partially because of the content and what its name implies (disregarding that it's not MLP-related at all), and partially because I am not sure of the consequences of naming it quite yet. That is something I am going to have to think on for a little bit longer.
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I mean, you could always send me a PM. I may not have commented, but I have enjoyed your more...................explicit stories.
Anyway, glad things are appearing to turn up.