Monday, December 31, 2012

Full Circle

So, it would seem my last post in the blog was a rather cryptic good-bye as I didn't write in it until just now.

I must say this won't do.

I guess I could blame a lot of things for my lack of writing. The separation between my wife and I affected things up to that point, and then working on getting things back in working order once we got back together early this year also affected my writing.

I usually write during emotional extremes. It's a bad habit, as I've come to rely on it like a sort of 'nitro boost' for my talent. I got to the point where I felt like if I wasn't absolutely miserable or depressed, I couldn't create (I felt the same when I was overtly happy but never felt the end product was as good as the 'darker' material I usually came up with) and since my life has been a happy medium for quite some time...I simply stopped writing.

There is a difference between not writing, and no longer getting ideas. Ideas I always had by the truck-load. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to NOT have ideas flowing from me at any given moment. I'd just find myself day-dreaming and imagining entire scenes and comics from start to finish without so much effort as it took to simply stop whatever I was doing and merely revel in the creative moment. But when that is where they stopped. I lacked a true motivation to put these tens of thousands of ideas to paper, and eventually even lost a bit of motivation to explore where they went whenever I was struck with one.

One thing those closest to me know is I struggle with a crippling depression. It's not a constant thing, and ebbs and flows, sometimes to be completely non-existent, only to hit me with such a crushing force all I want to do is just lie in bed and wallow in self-pity. it's a vicious cycle, and mostly brought on by my own self-imposed inability to create. I limited myself, and thus limited what I was capable of, and since I'm 32 and have nothing to show for it, etc etc...you can see where this goes.

However, what always broke me out of the cycle was writing, and having people actually enjoy it. But without the drive to do this (another self-imposed block) my depression has hit me harder this year than any other, when it really shouldn't have. My wife and I got back together, I got a decent and well-paying (if not highly stressful) job, and financially my family isn't going paycheck to paycheck. It's been a good year. A great year even.

So why so serious?

I'm starting to really dive into the hows and whys of why I do what I do. Why do I want to become a writer? Because I love doing it. Why do I love doing it? Because it makes me feel like a beautiful and unique snowflake (har). If it makes me feel so good, why don't I do it more? Because I'm terrible at it. Why am I so terrible? Because I said so.

Because I said so...interesting, isn't it? I am, and will always be not only my own worst critic (the same is said of anyone who is creative) but I will always be my own worst enemy. Always there to cut myself down when I'm picking myself back up. It does me no good to be so cruel and ruthless in my attacks on my own self, except to keep me from getting back up.

And this year I almost didn't. No no, nothing drastically stupid as suicide or the like. I mean putting down the pen for good and simply walking away. I seriously thought if I just gave up, stopped going for my dreams, life would be easier. And it might be. But it would be empty and meaningless. I need to have goals to function. Without some carrot on a stick I just turn into this listless blob of flesh who has to motivate himself merely to get up in the morning.

That is not who I wish to become for the rest of my life. So it's not an easy road, re-writing one's own views and habits, but it's one I've got to try. Otherwise I'll be writing a letter like this every year, about this very thing...and we certainly don't want that.

In other news I've started jotting a mish-mash of notes for an RPG I'm working on (probably one I've been 'working on' for years) and have a teaser comic I've written up for the web comic I'm basing off the world I'm creating. I've got them on Google Docs, and am debating posting links to them within my blog so people can view and comment on the ideas as I write them. This year is about breaking the comfort zone, so we'll see.