A Little Bit of a Slump

It's been a weird few months for me, creatively. I've been working on the site a lot, writing a bunch of game-related blog posts, even technically/formally entered the dev process on a new game project I'm really excited about. But despite all this, I've really felt... stagnant.

Ever since officially deciding to start making that game project (Project Gaia), I haven't actually added onto any ideas. I haven't even written any of the followup posts I want to write explaining more about the idea nad concept, maybe showing off some concept art. I haven't done any writing in my other genres I enjoy, and even my game articles have started to slow and feel harder and harder to work on. It's just this weird energy about me, something sapping my creativity and energy to work for a couple months or so now. I wish it was as simple as "Aha! Here's the problem! Brush my hands and be rid of it!" but it never is that easy. If a problem went away just because you can recognize it, then my life would be significantly easier and better.

In the past, the only way I knew how to get out of a slump like this was to wait. Wait for the feeling to inevitably pass, and just go back to what I'm doing. Probably not the healthiest way to handle a problem, but it's worked pretty well for me in general. Despite this, I always get worried when a slump lasts longer than a week, then more worried when it's more than a month, so on and so forth. I've never had a slump last longer than a few months, 3 or 4 I think, but it's always disheartening to go so long without working on any of these projects, and not really have anything I can do about it but keep waiting for the Spirit of the Muse to return to me. I never liked how out of my hands that felt. It especially worries me the more I've been working on this site (partially to try and distract myself from the fact I'm not writing) and the more I think about my eventually plans to publish online. What will I do if I hit a slump, but my Patreon subscribers are waiting on this month's chapter? What if I have to delay an upload? What if, what if, what if? It's exhausting, but unlike most of my worries, I'm not going to pretend that this one is unreasonable. If I intend to take my writing anywhere beyond my own composition notebook, I have to think about the logistics, and sometimes, that involves my own mind and keeping on schedule.

Unfortunately, I haven't really come to a conclusion about all this. I've just continued waiting, continued trying to work around it, and doing my best to keep things moving. In the end, I'm not making money yet, none of my projects are anywhere near the point I would ask people to pay me anything at all. So these concerns, while valid, are not a pressing, immediate issue. It's good to think about and plan for, but it can't be my present concern, when I have so many other things to get in order. And really, when nothing of mine is public yet, every step forward I take helps, whether it's working on this site, or setting up a profile, or posting assorted gaming thoughts. It's just something about me that I'm trying to learn to live with, and hopefully in the near future I can find a solution and keep creating. It's all I really want to do.

~ Alex Amelia Pine