Feeling stuck

Friends,

I'll keep the words short this month. It has been a strange past 6 weeks. I feel like I stalled completely on my project, and experienced these dueling feelings of restlessness to create, and a lack of motivation to create.

I spent some time looking inward and trying to debug what was happening. A lot of the usual culprits came up like: burnout, imposter syndrome, or feeling overwhelmed. But also some other working revelations: that maybe when I go too slow I lose momentum and stall out. Maybe alongside the writing, I need to keep a couple of visual related tasks going to fuel me. Maybe I can focus on some world-building lore and designs, as I was particularly inspired by this world-building fantasy youtube channel.

Who knows!! All I know is for the next while I can experiment with things and see what works. And I also know that I really need to let go of the high expectations I have of myself (or else nothing will get done!).

Have any of you written long stories? How do you get through the endless revising and editing and maintain the momentum and excitement? Do I just need to give myself permission to do the dang thing and not care if it’s bad?!?! Would you all want to see world-building insight, or any talk of my writing process (banging head on desk, really. Pulling blood from a stone, etc, etc)??

Recommendations

Something I read : Godslave comic

My pal Meaghan Carter has been immensely helpful in fielding all my AHHH BIG STORY feelings (endless THANK YOUUUU), and I turn to her a lot because she's done a long form comic, Godslave, which now has a kickstarter for the printing of its second volume. Please go and support this incredibly talented human, and get in return a fantastic comic about Egyptian mythology and complicated family.

Something I watched : Lady Vengeance

I took time this past bit to go through Park-Chan wook's vengeance trilogy. A stunning set of films, loosely linked in it's exploration of vengeance and its ultimate futility to make us feel good (among many other things, but I am simplifying). It was neat to see how his film-making and storytelling sensibilities evolve over the trilogy, with the final installment (Lady Vengeance) being my favourite..

Something I listened to : 5-4 Pod

In their own words, 5-4 Pod is "a podcast where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have slowly poisoned American life, like toxic runoff into a mountain stream.". Incredibly enlightening, surprisingly funny and entertaining.

Thanks for tuning in…

…and keeping up with what work I have (or haven’t) been doing. Write more soon!