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Life Update (Long Journal)
a year ago
I’m still here; never left. I’ve been meaning to write this journal for a few months now, but I’m beginning to hear of concern that I’ve disappeared, so it seems I need to get it out sooner rather than later.
While I’ll try to be brief, this is still a deep dive into my personal life.
-Graduated! …three years ago.
I got a Bachelor’s Degree (Accounting major). Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to make much use of it yet. When my “Big Plans” fizzled out my back-up plan was to get with an accounting firm and get my CPA, but that hasn’t come to be. Now I’m simply looking for any accounting related work, though haven’t landed anything yet.
Why so long? Well, it doesn’t help that I absolutely despise the job-hunting process, so I did so half-heartedly for quite a while. But I’ve been going at it much harder as I’m at the end of my financial lifelines.
-More on those “Big Plans”.
I realized while writing this journal that the old one announcing my Big Plans was still up, so I’ve gone ahead and deleted that. For those who know what those Big Plans are, know that I would still love to eventually get back to them, but the new timeframe would be… 2028? At the absolute earliest. Being entirely self-funded, it’s going to take me up to 18 months to dig myself out of my credit hole, then it’d take another year at least to build up collateral for a business loan. Then there’s the prototype development time and cost on top of that. So yeah, 2028 is optimistic.
I didn’t have a big enough social platform to get the team of folks I wanted, so I had to downscale plans to focus on getting a prototype out to generate interest. Unfortunately, those plans fizzled out as well, so that’s when I shelved those “Big Plans” and started trying to get into the general work pool. Been living off the savings and credit I originally had earmarked for the prototype.
-Financial induced depression.
I ran out of “fun” money years ago. I had set some aside while I still had access to student loans, but I’ve been living on a very strict frugal budget for years. At first it was to help fund those “Big Plans”, then to stretch out my finances while unemployed for as long as possible.
This is why you haven’t been seeing any new art from me. I haven’t been able to justify the expense of affording any.
It also means that I haven’t been able to buy new games, go out to do activities, travel to cons, etc. I’m effectively still living in lockdown conditions. My roommates do the grocery shopping, so literally the only time I leave the house is for haircuts.
I’m sure it’s easy to conclude that my emotional state has not been the best as a result. My emotional battery has been running on fumes for quite some time; I barely have enough to keep myself going, let alone keep up the “strong” image expected of me when folks pile on their problems on me, too.
I realize I’m very fortunate to have access to credit to begin with. But it’s been a double-edged sword. Yes, it’s allowed me to coast along for as long as I have, but it’s also been the crutch that kept the danger alarms from activating much sooner. And that credit isn’t “free”; It’ll take me quite some time to dig myself out of the credit hole.
But, after coming to terms that I have been suffering a form of depression (which was at a low point the past few months), I’ve been starting to dig myself out of it.
-You’re a writer. What about the lack of stories?
Yeah…
You know that Beastly Experience project I started 3 years ago? Still working on it. It morphed into a much bigger project than I had initially planned and grew from a planned 3 chapters to 6. It’ll basically be a novel once done at an estimated 47-50k words.
To add, in the past I’ve relied on “inspiration” to get my writing done. That same inspiration has been much rarer to come by during the last few years, so you’ve a recipe for a huge writing output drop.
As if that wasn’t enough, whenever I do start writing a small one-off story, I always get hit by guilt that I should be spending my writing energy on the big project. This often kills the inspiration I have for smaller one-off stories.
-The action plan.
1) Finding a job is critical at this point, so I’m still making that a priority when I have the energy to do so. This new job will also come with an expected move to Calgary.
2) I have a commission I’ve been holding in reserve for over 2 years. It was supposed to be a celebration and reward for getting into the accounting industry, but that goal has long lost its luster and it’s time to just get it out there. Some friends have been waiting years to see it! I have some other miscellaneous backlog I can share as well.
3) I’m going to post Chapter 1 of The Beastly Experience story. From there, I’m going to try and commit to a monthly release schedule of the remaining chapters, possibly with some form of early access from a new Patreon I’m going to create for my NSFW writing. This will give me time to edit Chapters 2-4, and finish writing 5 and 6.
4) To help on the financial side of things I’m going to open a writing slot in the coming days.
5) To solve the “inspiration” issue, I’m going to begin setting some time each week solely for writing. I’m not expecting to be able to pump out an entire 8-10k story in a day like I’ve done in the past, but even if I only manage a few thousand words in a week that’ll translate to a story or chapter being done every month.
-Conclusion
It was not my intent to “disappear”, I’ve simply had nothing to post, and my life has been in a stagnant state for years. I was hoping this big update journal would come with the good news that things were looking up, but hopefully that will come soon!
While I’ll try to be brief, this is still a deep dive into my personal life.
-Graduated! …three years ago.
I got a Bachelor’s Degree (Accounting major). Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to make much use of it yet. When my “Big Plans” fizzled out my back-up plan was to get with an accounting firm and get my CPA, but that hasn’t come to be. Now I’m simply looking for any accounting related work, though haven’t landed anything yet.
Why so long? Well, it doesn’t help that I absolutely despise the job-hunting process, so I did so half-heartedly for quite a while. But I’ve been going at it much harder as I’m at the end of my financial lifelines.
-More on those “Big Plans”.
I realized while writing this journal that the old one announcing my Big Plans was still up, so I’ve gone ahead and deleted that. For those who know what those Big Plans are, know that I would still love to eventually get back to them, but the new timeframe would be… 2028? At the absolute earliest. Being entirely self-funded, it’s going to take me up to 18 months to dig myself out of my credit hole, then it’d take another year at least to build up collateral for a business loan. Then there’s the prototype development time and cost on top of that. So yeah, 2028 is optimistic.
I didn’t have a big enough social platform to get the team of folks I wanted, so I had to downscale plans to focus on getting a prototype out to generate interest. Unfortunately, those plans fizzled out as well, so that’s when I shelved those “Big Plans” and started trying to get into the general work pool. Been living off the savings and credit I originally had earmarked for the prototype.
-Financial induced depression.
I ran out of “fun” money years ago. I had set some aside while I still had access to student loans, but I’ve been living on a very strict frugal budget for years. At first it was to help fund those “Big Plans”, then to stretch out my finances while unemployed for as long as possible.
This is why you haven’t been seeing any new art from me. I haven’t been able to justify the expense of affording any.
It also means that I haven’t been able to buy new games, go out to do activities, travel to cons, etc. I’m effectively still living in lockdown conditions. My roommates do the grocery shopping, so literally the only time I leave the house is for haircuts.
I’m sure it’s easy to conclude that my emotional state has not been the best as a result. My emotional battery has been running on fumes for quite some time; I barely have enough to keep myself going, let alone keep up the “strong” image expected of me when folks pile on their problems on me, too.
I realize I’m very fortunate to have access to credit to begin with. But it’s been a double-edged sword. Yes, it’s allowed me to coast along for as long as I have, but it’s also been the crutch that kept the danger alarms from activating much sooner. And that credit isn’t “free”; It’ll take me quite some time to dig myself out of the credit hole.
But, after coming to terms that I have been suffering a form of depression (which was at a low point the past few months), I’ve been starting to dig myself out of it.
-You’re a writer. What about the lack of stories?
Yeah…
You know that Beastly Experience project I started 3 years ago? Still working on it. It morphed into a much bigger project than I had initially planned and grew from a planned 3 chapters to 6. It’ll basically be a novel once done at an estimated 47-50k words.
To add, in the past I’ve relied on “inspiration” to get my writing done. That same inspiration has been much rarer to come by during the last few years, so you’ve a recipe for a huge writing output drop.
As if that wasn’t enough, whenever I do start writing a small one-off story, I always get hit by guilt that I should be spending my writing energy on the big project. This often kills the inspiration I have for smaller one-off stories.
-The action plan.
1) Finding a job is critical at this point, so I’m still making that a priority when I have the energy to do so. This new job will also come with an expected move to Calgary.
2) I have a commission I’ve been holding in reserve for over 2 years. It was supposed to be a celebration and reward for getting into the accounting industry, but that goal has long lost its luster and it’s time to just get it out there. Some friends have been waiting years to see it! I have some other miscellaneous backlog I can share as well.
3) I’m going to post Chapter 1 of The Beastly Experience story. From there, I’m going to try and commit to a monthly release schedule of the remaining chapters, possibly with some form of early access from a new Patreon I’m going to create for my NSFW writing. This will give me time to edit Chapters 2-4, and finish writing 5 and 6.
4) To help on the financial side of things I’m going to open a writing slot in the coming days.
5) To solve the “inspiration” issue, I’m going to begin setting some time each week solely for writing. I’m not expecting to be able to pump out an entire 8-10k story in a day like I’ve done in the past, but even if I only manage a few thousand words in a week that’ll translate to a story or chapter being done every month.
-Conclusion
It was not my intent to “disappear”, I’ve simply had nothing to post, and my life has been in a stagnant state for years. I was hoping this big update journal would come with the good news that things were looking up, but hopefully that will come soon!
Glad your still around *hugs and rubs that belly*