On Momentum · 2:59pm Aug 30th, 2022
It's strange. I spent less than a week away from my place, two days of which can effectively be treated as spent entirely on communing from one half of the country to the other, and most of the rest of the days were spent at the convention...and yet in that time, I've been more productive on the writing front than I've been for months. Or, if you're not counting the stuff i made as part of collabs - and which i felt at least some obligation to do - it's been years since I last did something truly of my own volition.
And those were great days, they really were. Not just because the convention itself was incredible - though I'm not sure if I have half as many interesting anecdotes as some other folks - but because I felt like I could really actually engage in horse words. Things were inspiring: worth talking about, worth writing about, worth dedicating time to revising and publishing and eagerly anticipating what to do in the future. Suggestions lead me to plan out more things to do in the future, more approaches to consider, more, more. It was a writer's high, like I'd suddenly stepped into a forest glade full of literary narcotics, and there were many times where i couldn't think of much better to do than write - not out of a jaded half-desire to end a deep-set ennui, but from the empowering surge of putting fingers to keyboard itself - there was little in the world that seemed more fun than writing, save for friend activities and convention activities themselves.
And now I'm back home, I have all my material saved and a keyboard and no interruptions and...
...and it's like I've been submerged into fatigue again.
It's not literal, physical fatigue - there's some of that, but it's minor enough to not count for the purposes of this conversation, not really. Instead, it's the same, crushing sense of lacking the heart to actually perform. Oh, sure, I could write again, and maybe it'd be fun, and maybe folks could like it, but...
I don't quite know how to articulate it now. It's not so much the idea of writing at any given point in time as it is...the thought of writing again, going forward. The thought of making stuff semi-regularly, getting invested in work, once again drifting back into something constructive from years of giving far less of a shit about things than is healthy for an adult...I don't know why it suddenly seems hard all over again, but it does.
I'm not abandoning horse fandom. Fuck that. I never have, never will; got too much identity and history to just discard it like it's yesterday's trash. And to that sense, I don't want to let go. What happened there, what I made...I'm really happy that I made it in hindsight. It's the exact opposite feeling of regret, however you want to label that. But it's like whatever lesson that experience tried to teach me just didn't stick.
I have things that I've started. Plenty of things. None of it finished. And I'm loathe to once again start publishing something, lose all drive to continue and have to eventually mark it as cancelled. Naturally, the sensible thing to do is to actually buckle down, grind it out and submit it over here. And maybe in one of my more sensible moments, I'll do that. And I think I'll be happy with the fact that I've done that afterward.
I'll just have to defeat myself to do it. Beat the worst part of me, temporarily.
I'm not sure how long I can do that for. I might once again lapse into aproductivity, and if I got your hopes up for that only to let you down in under a week...I'm really, really sorry. I thought that catalyzing feeling was going to be a fundamental shift, a tipping point from A to B, and not a temporary rising of the tide.
But I'm as lost as you are when it comes to what I'm going to make and share going forward.
I guess there's only one way to find out.
Edit: Poll included as to what i should write for a 50th submission to the site. Not sure it'll help boot my ass into doing something people want, but...it's worth a shot.
*Hugs*
Gallus getting his gussy rearranged.
The best tip I can give is to start something. Inertia is a fickle mistress, and getting the ball rolling again can be the hardest part.
Also, great seeing you this weekend. Still processing the whole "provided formative experiences to young minds" thing. (Also, I suspect the only reason it looks like I have more anecdotes than anyone else is because I was literally taking notes the whole time.
)
I hope to get the ball rolling myself, and if you ever need someone to bounce ideas off of or give feedback, I'm always happy to help. Great seeing you again and hope to get the chance to come up to visit soon too.
That's really how it be, man. Going places and seeing like-minded people can ignite a fire that goes out as soon as you're away from them. I wish you luck in finding ways to rekindle that flame
Might be completely off track here, but it sounds to me like you might be bored with the isolation when writing on your own. Try get a friend on discord or something while you write to bounce ideas around and just make it more social.
Motivation is weird, but try to make it fun.