Weekly dev log #12, 28th August 2023

Hello everyone! 

Here comes another dreadfully honest dev log, lol. If you aren't in the mood for me being vulnerable, here's a tl;dr of progress:

• I have been coding and keeping at it, writing the theme from scratch just to get comfortable with the coding. It has come with a lot of ups and downs (coding and then recoding because it was a trashfire. pfft.) It's moving!
• I have been rewriting passages and thinking so hard that it makes me dizzy, solving plot problems and reworking the plot, even the world itself. (cue maniacal laughter)
•  At the bottom there's a poll I'd love for you to vote on, regarding if I should share more spoilery stuff about Ouro in dev logs and such, so that I might share more about what I am working on story wise, and not just on how I'm doing, uhm, mentally.

Now. Last week was pretty productive, and quite... transformative. Productivity wise, I am still bouncing between coding my theme from scratch (because I want to get familiar with the medium), rewriting the code because it's a whole mess and a half, rewriting the actual passages, and dare I say it... re-writing the plot for Ouro quite a bit. I'm still working on it, and I am intermittently struggling with depression and other such fun mental barriers. I have felt stuck in a rut with the plot for quite some time, and when I was re-reading the story as is, I really struggled to find my original vision. It is obviously a balancing act when writing for the public and trying to account for many wishes and suggestions, and I think I strayed too far and made a milquetoast version of the story I am trying to tell, just to please people that (I can almost guarantee) aren't even here to see it come to fruition. 

It's another lesson to learn, for sure, amongst the billion other reasons why writing and sharing it publicly has been a humbling experience for me. Alas, I am moving forward, step by wobbly step. I'm still finding my stride (and I thank you for your patience!!), and it is... really hard. Hell, last week I almost threw in the towel and quit it entirely. I'm not built for this, I seethed and threw myself a pity-party. Why can't I do it like the others can, I cried and tooted my party kazoo pathetically. And then I picked myself up, threw some confetti and jingled across the floor miserably. 

There is a need for change that goes beyond me writing full time, because as I have discovered, the only thing writing full time has afforded me is a lower resting heart rate and a handful of extra shortstories a month, and sure, the fact that I have time to learn a new coding language- but I was already writing as much as I could when I had my job! I am quite heartbroken about this, as I think I expected myself to step into writing full time and be an expert at it immediately,  just because I said I could. I can't. It hurts to admit that. 

That doesn't mean I won't get there, I just have to ease my way in; work with my disabilities, instead of against them. I have to be kind to the sad sponge in my skull, because it wasn't built for this grind, or the attention. 

This change mainly starts with comparison and social media. I'm on a strict diet. Before I started writing Ouro, I was very restrictive with my time online, but that changed when I posted the demo and the demand of Being A Creator sucked me in and started this whole spiral. It's vicious! I should know better than obsessively checking in on the forum, or the tags on tumblr, or the reddits and the whatnots, only to feel bad because no one is mentioning this story. And why would they, when it seems I am incapable of writing as much as the Other Authors. Or this other fun time when I was devastated because I read that someone won't read wip's under a 100k words, and I felt so scorned and punished for trying to code efficiently. You see how this is a problem, I am sure. Jingles miserably. I feel ridiculous saying it out loud, but. I want to tell you. I am so far from perfect. But god damn it, I am trying. 

The second part is what I talked about above. I am trying to find my joy in writing again, and I am not going to subscribe to any norms or must-haves or do-nots. I loved this story when I started writing it, and I have loved this world for a decade or more! You also saw something special in it when you first read it, which is why you are here, no? I have to learn to trust that, even when impostor syndrome sneaks back into my head, this time wearing a fake nose and glasses, or next time dressed as a gnome. 

I also want to try to reign in my dev-logs, because while it can be really cathartic to spell all of this out, it creates immense anxiety once it's posted. I'm scared of judgement, of losing subscribers, of sounding like a miserable fool with ambition but no executive skill. So the poll below goes into if you are willing to read about small, spoilery stuff like what I'm planning for the story, that I will try to keep vague, but still share in some capacity. If you don't enjoy spoilers, that is fine by me too- I would just try to keep the dev logs to what actual things I have done, in short and sweet bullet-point form. Maybe I would open up every now and then, but doing this every week feels excruciatingly exposing. I'm not sure I can handle that at this time, when my mind is so turbulent. xx

I want to share a video I came across after writing this dev log, that just rings so true to what I am going through right now, worded in such an eloquent and heartfelt way. If you yourself struggle with similar feelings, it was a great pep talk and I really recommend it.

Heart Breathings

Poll time! Should I be more open about spoilers?