Hiding in the void
Wow. I haven’t written anything on this site in almost a year. Ouch.
I seem to keep coming across the same conundrum. When I have the motivation and energy to create I lack the time, and when I’ve had the time my mental health hasn’t exactly been award winning. As much as there’s a stereotype of the troubled creator it’s shockingly hard to actually be creative when everything feels pointless and you’re mind refuses to accept the possibility anything you make could be worthwhile.
Depression is an absolute bitch.
So I find myself here again. Unemployed for the last few months, in theory with all the time in the world to write and create and do all the things I spent the previous six months cursing that I didn’t have time to do and instead I’m legitimately struggling to make my brain do even this much. And once again, along comes one of my best friends with a casual remark that hits exactly the right nerve.
“Just practice using the muscles, write a scene to just introduce a character or write a fight scene or something to just exercise the muscle of writing that scene, don’t worry about making it part of a whole thing” - paraphrased from J. Armitage, June 2025.
It’s nothing I didn’t already know, to be fair. Nothing new just… refocused. That wonderful way that hearing someone else say a thing can crystallise the thoughts, make something that was overlooked in it’s simplicity stand out. I made this website as a place to do exactly that, just practice the motions of writing to losen up stiff creative muscles, and then got bogged down in the pressures of life again. Yay.
There’s a part of my mind that feels guilty taking the time to even write this little babble that probably won’t be read by anyone any time soon. I SHOULD be using this time to go apply for jobs or do housework or a hundred other things that SHOULD be important. And those things are important. But also… so is having purpose. Which I have been sorely lacking the last several years.
There’s a few things I know help me be more creative. Writing, of course, but just sitting at the keyboard without anything to say is like banging my head against the wall and hoping to bleed gold. Can’t exhale if you don’t inhale.
So… a plan. Wake up, and go for a walk with music first thing each day. I’m also going to challenge myself to write at least one scene each month for the rest of the year, focusing on a different area of storytelling, and post on this site with updates as I go through the process.
(Quick note; I changed the above from “short story” to "one scene” specifically to limit the scope of what I’m aiming for. I’ve tried “I’ll write a short story in a month” challenges before and I always wind up setting my expectations for myself way too high, and tripping myself up trying to run before I figure out how to have legs - if there’s one muscle I need to practice, it’s managing my own expectations of myself :P )
Will I succeed? Honestly, probably not - if I’m remotely lucky, I’ll get offered another day job soon and that’ll throw everything back into chaos again. ADHD + Autism + big life changes tends to be a fun combination and a big part of the reason I’ve had such a hard time getting things on track. BUT, this isn’t about pass or fail, it’s about the attempt. Moving in the right direction. And if I’m unlucky and I don’t get offered a day job soon, putting the time into making something is a hell of a lot more useful than falling into the void of depression all over again.