C:\rias-rambles\writerly-rambles\FINAL-1-end-copy.txt
“We are so back.”
― LocalThunk
So, if you know me, you know that I’ve been struggling for years with this sort of motivational writers block thing. It tries to come’n’go, but for the most part this has been a feature of my life since Alabama happened to me.
As of late, however, I’ve been working on changing that! Now it’s just uh. Matter of completing something. Before it was this overwhelming desire to create and having no ability, now it’s this like. Ability to create without a project pushing me onwards..? I keep starting stuff and then getting all grumpy about it and starting a new thing.
Not something I’m used to!
It makes sense, I suppose– I spent a lot of time locked in on one singular project for ages and now I’m like… a free agent. That’s not what I’m used to at all. I’ve not been in this sort of free-fall state of having no one major project to lock in on before. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get back to that project either, really, because in the absence of being able to work on it, it kind of became a bit of a monolithic thing, if that makes sense at all. “If I ever get back to this, it must be PERFECT, beyond all belief!” type shit. Which I acknowledge as supremely unhelpful, don’t get me wrong– but it figures out as something that’s just vastly easier to sidebar than it is to lock myself in to. (‘Cause trying to stick with that project will just end up making it into a sort of prison which is even more unhelpful)
As it stands, I use the basis of that project–the worldbuilding itself– as my sorta centerpoint. I like to base stuff in that reality, because the rules of it make sense to me intrinsically. Which makes sense, I’ve fiddled around with stuff inside of it since 2014 or so. It’s as much a part of me as it is a part of my writing at this point.
But! I determined after a while that I need to stop getting attachment issues about my goddamn projects. Funnily enough, what made this click was reading the goddamn Balatro dev logs of all things. See this link here if you’re curious, but I’ll put the relevant quote below. It’s an interesting read altogether, doubly so if you’re curious how the absolute fucking phenomenon happened. (I am not as deeply devoted to Balatro as some are, but mostly b/c I intentionally keep it quarantined on my phone.)
March 2022
- Early March marked an important event in the history of Balatro, and I wanted to describe why things happened the way they did. I stopped working on the project entirely.
- I have been making games for about 10 years now and I have been doing visual art projects for much longer, and a very important habit I have developed for creative hobby projects is to stop working on something when I no longer feel the drive. This is for 2 main reasons; first, it allows me to move on to the next idea without totally burning out on the last thing. Second, and more importantly in this case, it allows me to take time off guilt free and possibly come back to the project later on without wrapping it in negative emotions. That leads us to…
May 2022
- We are so back.
( Emphasis added is not, in fact, my own. )
This idea of like… Dropping a project, doing something else, and picking it back up if the inspiration comes, hadn’t really come to me for whatever reason. In my mind, I start something and either finish it first shot, dump it eternally, or enshrine it as something fucking holy to finish when I have the braincells to do it. The idea of just following the goddamn autism hadn’t came up, somehow. So I’ve resolved to try that! First whirl around’ll be this concept I have rattling around in my head to do a sci-fi romance novel with Kane Robinson’s weirdo legal scapegoat journey as the bones of a plot. And if that doesn’t work out? Fuck it, I guess, I’ll throw myself at some other concept.
At the end of the day, I miss writing being a habit that I could throw myself at and feel productive upon doing. Nowadays, it’s been my personal little fucking purgatory, and I need to break that association or so help me god I’m gonna start actually fucking biting people.
So, I dunno. I’m gonna see if using this space like some sort of morning author’s pages for a bit will help, maybe see if breaking the habit back in will be of any sorta help, double as clearing out the gunk from the ol shitbrain. Apologies to all one of you with me on an RSS feed. <3