When I logged in to start writing today’s blog post I was informed that it was my seven year WordPress anniversary, and given that I created this blog at university as part of a writing project there, I did what any well put-together adult would do: I mentally crumbled and had an existential crisis about the passage of time. Because, I mean, seriously. 2014 was seven years ago?! That’s not allowed! That’s illegal! Stop that at once! I haven’t grown enough as a person since then for seven years to have passed! Aaaaaa!
But anyways, we’re here to talk about my February. My hilariously empty February. What happened to me in Februrary? I scream, for I do not know.
The optimism I had in January slowly slipped away as more and more news came out about how long the vaccination process will take, the restrictions that we’ll still need to adhere to post-vaccination, and the government’s subsequent ignoring of most health official advice. Don’t come at me about politics either, I don’t even know the details because they’re too depressing to keep up with. All I know is that I walked into a room with a TV on a week or so ago and heard Boris Johnson talking about school re-openings and “unavoidable deaths” in the same breath. That light at the end of the tunnel may be farther away than I initially had hoped.
I’m not completely down in the dumps, though. We’re closer to the end than we are to the start, and throughout this entire thing I’ve been relatively successful in staying positive by not thinking too far ahead. When I think of the months ahead I’m not thinking about continued isolation and arguments about what risks we should be taking, I’m thinking of videogame releases and upcoming shows, and how we’re finally starting to see sunny warm spells outside, which are not to be underestimated in how effective of a mood-booster they are to me right now. I’m continuing to only leave the house for work and necessities whether the government lifts lockdown or not, as I have been this entire time, with the knowledge that in another time, in another place, this will all be a distant dark memory. I hope that anybody who is reading this is able to find some similar comfort in that.
As far as what I’ve been up to… well, I have a stumble I need to address. In early February I got very excited about the prospect of applying my creative philosophies on video series and blog posts onto fiction writing, in an effort to get me writing more. In that vein, I launched a new blog named Have It In By Friday, the core idea behind it being that I’m to publish a new short story every fortnight. But after my first story, which I’m very pleased with and put together in about two days, I went on to miss the second deadline, and we’re now less than a week out from the third and I have little to show for it. The easy conclusion to jump to here is that forcing deadlines on myself isn’t a strategy that’s going to work, but if I’m honest, I’m not sure how to get myself writing otherwise, as I’ve produced very few short stories in the years since I finished uni. Waiting for motivation to come to me isn’t the right answer, because it’s unreliable and either abandons me for months or strikes at times when I can’t write, such as during work or when I need to sleep. It’s a very frustrating problem, but it’s not one I’m going to give up on trying to solve.
I sometimes wonder if I’m trying to juggle too many creative projects at once. Besides the two monthly blog posts I do, one at the end of the month here and one on the 10th at my sister blog, I also create a weekly gameplay video series that I’m 148 consecutive weeks into. Outside of time specific content, I typically make two more videos per week for my channel, either gameplay highlights or commentaries on books or shows I’ve been reading or watching. I love doing all of this, but fitting a fortnightly short story around that schedule has proven difficult, and as an aspiring author I feel like I’m betraying myself by refusing to make room for it. It’s something I’m still grappling with, but perhaps I’ll have the answer by the next monthly update.
Beyond my creative endeavours, I spent February taking a hard left from my obsession with Elder Scrolls Online on Xbox to an obsession with my new Ironman account on Runescape. I also enjoyed reading through the first omnibus volume of the Cirque du Freak manga, started to care about Nintendo consoles again thanks to some actual Nintendo news, and enjoyed Blizzard’s BlizzConline event more than I thought I would.
If it sounds like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for the “in other news” part of this blog post, that’d be because February was sparser than a parsnip basket in winter. See you on the other side of March!
Perpetually Perturbed 