31 Days In May - Extended

The short version: I'm taking a month off from all things video in order to do some much-needed behind the scenes bit and pieces. Yes, all video. Yes, including live streams.

So, why?

The month of bad performance I've had with my recording software was really HARSHING MY VIBE and I hadn't realised exactly how much my vibe had indeed been harshed until threatened to take my (Brutal)ball and go home on Discord.

A segue into Brutalball, briefly. It's fabulous for Dozerverse character-building, is often surprising, but always entertaining (and exhausting) to stream, and is, fundamentally, a complete waste of my time. But it's fun. The return on investment is completely awful, but isn't that what a fun hobby is supposed to be? Anyway, following a piece of feedback that lacked some empathy, I did a mini Pompei in Discord. For me, that's highly unusual - I deal with gamers for a living and they're hardly first in the line to think about how a comment will be received. I'm used to it, and while my chill levels are normal, I surf it like a boss. Freakin bulletproof. Yesterday scored the actual appearance of human emotion. Can't be doing that.

Why?

I unplugged for the day and built miniature Mexican wagons while binge watching the new Vietnam docu-series on Netflix (filled in a few knowledge gaps, well worth a watch and resists any obvious needle drops, which pleasantly surprised me) in a bid to run a self-diagnostic.

It worked. Here are my findings, and some philosophy.

In the past 3 months, I've added a full time job to my workload. Like all new jobs this is more mentally taxing than one you've done for years - even when you know the discipline inside out, you still have to figure out how you fit into the new gig. As much as I'm enjoying what I'm doing for Urban Games, I was also spending significant mental capital every day.

Layer onto this the absolute pain in the backside that my recording software has been for the past month. What used to be "hit go, be entertaining" turned into "hit go, hope it works, it hasn't worked, redo that bit, the render's failed because the footage is corrupt, oh and the stream is being weird". It added a massive amount of friction where previously there'd be none. Effectively it added 5x the amount of stress to what had previously been only a moderate burn on my mental bandwidth.

Now let's throw in what month we're in. It's only my third year at this widower lark, and I've got to grips with how grief works for me, but that doesn't mean I'm its master. It also means that this particular month of the year (late April-late May) is like someone playing the Venga Boys in the back of my head constantly.

Finally, let's look at the (only) thing I've been doing for the fun of it - Brutalball. The salvation activity that's supposed to recharge batteries flipped polarity and had started to burn them instead, across a few incidents. In isolation, none of them were unreasonable, but they fundamentally sucked the jam out of my doughnut.

With hindsight, I could have known this was coming. But while you're in a mentally fatigued state while keeping up appearances you don't spot it until it's already happened.

We all have a mental fuel tank. Different things drain it at different rates (and what that is differs from person to person, it's your own damn fuel tank). Some things empty it less, some things more, and we all need activities, changes of pace and scenery, that refills the tank. If you're out of mental gas, you flip out, stall, you're metaphorically stuck at the side of the road.

Now, when herself was around, she was constantly refilling my tank. It's what allowed me to do 8 years of full time job, and constant video production without ever breaking a sweat - and there were sustained periods where I was basically working 16 hours a day without it ever feeling like I was short of gas. Pretty incredible.

That constant recharge was replaced with... nothing. Have I started going places and doing things with exciting people? Nope. What's my third place? Don't have one. Hell, I don't even have a second place. warning lights flashing everywhere

So, rather like Agent Smith, this was inevitable.

Big dope. I mean, seriously. You utter spanner.

Okay, so I'm taking a month off from video while simultaneously taking no time off from video.

Hmm?

I'm going to do 2, I think, big videos. We'll see how it goes. Like 8-10 hours of recording for each one, ending with a run-time of 1 hour for public consumption. Those "better videos" I've spoken about, let's try some of that. The goal? Feel good about the end product. If either/both get strong view numbers, feel real good about the end product. In the meantime I'll also learn new recording software and make it sing. Then, when returning to action I'll have eliminated recording stress so, if I choose, get straight back on the horse. In all honesty, I probably won't get back on the horse, but we'll see what mood takes me. I might decide that the process of making bigger videos is more satisfying. I might decide that going back to 3 episodes of 20 minute let's play per week and a social stream (which will return no matter what) is actually the kind of thing that works best.

I'll have a few behind the scenes, work in progress, videos for you during this time. There are two motivational factors here: 1, get some feedback (if required) and 2, a blatantly transparent bid to prevent you all from yoinking your backing. Oooh, let's add that as a stress factor. Hmm. That genuinely wasn't emotional blackmail. You don't believe me. It's cool. If you think, "y'know, this ride isn't what it used to be" you can hop off the ride now and I'll still be grateful to you for your support to date.

Summary:

1. Recharge a bit by removing time pressure

2. Get things working properly again

3. Find ACTIVITY B that means my digital things are turned off for a full day each week

4. Make a couple of videos you're genuinely happy with

Should be a doddle.

You have question, I have answer.

-CF