When you reach my age and have already spent countless years growing, evolving, expanding yourself as a person, any sort of epiphany may just come across as something you already knew and had just forgotten about.
Sometimes, that's really all you need.
I'll briefly say again how crappy I've felt in June, and having been unable to write for the most part of it has made me feel awful because I simply don't know if I'll be able to offer the promised rewards on Patreon. I am so tired, it's ridiculous. It's made me wonder all over again how I ever handled a physical job for which I sometimes only slept 3 to 4 hours.
Beyond allergies and heat, I've felt unhappy about writing for the most part of the last 3 years I think. Ever since my surgery, something has happened to my brain (and, no, it wasn't brain surgery). After years upon years of sometimes extreme fatigue, the last year of which riddled with migraines and basically the inability to live, suddenly being free of all that changed something in me. More energy, more resilience, I suddenly had the healthy body I'd never had in 33 years of life. This came at a price: my imagination.
It's been a constant struggle getting into my characters' minds. I've tried and view this change from the positive angles, but often I just wanted to cry over the loss of my creativity. Even though I did gain some skills in visual arts, have been able to work more on things, even LvlUpped in writing style. But I still feel unhappy. Frustrated. Wondering what I'm doing, and whether I should just give up and be part of the outside working force until I retire and realize I've wasted my life.
I've recently joined Reddit after one of their threads had been suggested to me. I posted a story there. Within a few hours, I'd gotten a response that made me rethink my entire perspective on my writings. The comment basically said I throw around too many names, which is a complaint bf's had as well. The writer never notices these things (especially a writer who's used to watching anime in subtitled Japanese and can remember who's who throughout the entire series). But, I'd felt like the start of the story was too abrupt. That comment made me stop to think about what I was doing, and especially why I was doing it.
The very core of my writer's soul is emotions. That is what I like to write - that is what I like to experience when I read/watch/play something. That's exactly what's come to be missing in my pieces. And, that's also exactly what I feel like I've been missing. I feel like I don't feel. At least, not as deeply as I'd like, which is in part why I like to write about emotions. These emotions have been missing from my latest pieces I think.
The question is: how do I fix this? I don't know. In between RL, spreading myself across the webs, and just trying to work on my world, I feel like I'm just one fragment speaking at a time. I don't feel whole. I still think my stress levels are insanely high and I simply don't realize. Things are just too hard right now, and I'll admit I need a lot more support than what I'm getting. In the sense that I'd need a constant string of encouragement, 24/7, to even but start to counter the overwhelming feeling of sadness and discouragement that's come to fill me.
In reality, I know there's absolutely no reason for me to give up. I knew 2017 would be the worst year ever (so to speak). I also still feel (know?) that 2018 is going to be an explosion of awesomeness. At this moment, I don't understand how I can even feel this way, but I know better than to put these feelings in question. I know I'm missing some step in my evolution. Hanging out on Reddit is proving to be quite the awesome experience, with so many writers around. I mean, my story got pretty well up-voted and, though I don't exactly know what that means, for me it's just a show of people's interest. That, in itself, feels good.
So, here we are: frustrated, tired, discouraged, braindead, and all the while I just feel like trying and dive back into the current story and basically rewrite all three pages into something that fits my goals. I want to be read and enjoyed, yes; I also want to be able to read myself and enjoy what I did.
I guess it's true what they say: anything easy to do is not worth doing. So considering how difficult it is for me to keep going, it should mean there's quite the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's just a matter of finding it.
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