Procrastination and Creating

Well there's no dancing around it. None of the stories that I've promised to write are anywhere near completion, and in the interim where I've continually promised they would be released there was either complete silence or that one Porn thing I wrote.

And I could go the route that I usually go when this sort of thing happens. I could write a long-winded, self-flagellating, and ultimately pointless blog post where I talk about how sorry I am and that I'm still working I promise and then put another arbitrary deadline up that I'll more than likely not even end up making. And I could even write it in a characteristically humorous and semi-ironic way so I can be given both a layer of detachment and plausible deniability. And you know, maybe in this paragraph alone, I haven't exactly escaped all of that... but I still don't really think that's the path I want to go down this time. So, instead... I'm going to write an overly verbose blog post in a bit of a different style, why not?

The truth is I haven't really been doing much writing at all. Or music making. Hell, I haven't even been, like, watching the anime or listening to podcasts that I want to. Most of my time has been pretty much been sunk in just doing straight up nothing. And like...for quite some time, maybe even longer than a year. Maybe for multiple years.

I'm not going to claim that I know what the problem is. I've had several long conversations with my therapist about how I struggle with time management and motivation on both personal and professional projects, but it's always been pretty nebulous what the source of that has been. Maybe it's just the fact that working on a project like this always requires an ambiguous amount of time. Or worse, a set amount of time with an ambiguous amount of work. I don't think I've ever talked here about the stress issues I face in life day to day, and while I do want to acknowledge them a bit more, I also don't want to get this post super bogged down, either. Actually, no, I should be more honest...it's gonna be a weird ramble-y mess no matter how I slice it.

But, I've been thinking more and more that, maybe that's okay. I think one of the other things that's bothered me about writing or creating anything recently is that I'm scared it won't be good enough. Not like, that people won't like it, or even that I won't. Just that it won't...be what it should have been. It's really funny actually, you can watch all the motivational videos and have all the pretentious philosophical conversations in the world about how the value of art is subjective and creation for its own sake is more valuable than trying to make something good and all that other stuff. You can know all of that and understand why...but in the end you'll still sometimes find yourself at that same wall.

And that's the wall I've been running into for a really really long time. And I'll be perfectly honest, I don't even know if this "revelation" of a blog post is going to change that. I mean, at this point this blog is more or less just the place I go to to have these kinds of emotional revelations, rather than actually talk about like story progression or pony stuff. Maybe that's what it's always been, maybe that has more importance to me than the alternative.

I mean, I'm certainly not writing any of this so that someone else will read it, right? Does anyone actually read these? I guess that's cool if you are. I don't mind if you're not though, like I said, this isn't really for you at this point. Not even this paragraph that addresses you directly.

The funniest part about all of this, though, is that it's exactly what I planned on being the themes for one of those fics that I kept promising would get written one day. I thought I had enough of the answers that I could start writing about them...but I guess I'm still nothing but questions.

But maybe that's okay. Actually, no, fuck the maybe, it is okay.

So in that spirit...let's talk about what I want to do.

I still want to write Counterpoint, the other fic I've frankly just kinda lost passion for. I'll keep it on a backburner for now and maybe I'll return to it, but no promises. In fact, I'm still going to make it a promise. I will write Counterpoint. No deadline, no empty promise, but a genuine true feeling:

I'm still going to write, because I still want to write. And maybe it will be good, and maybe it won't be...but that doesn't matter. And maybe one day, I'll be able to believe that sentiment instead of just knowing it.

Till next time,

-Sparkling Vinegar