Sometimes the Updates Just Don’t Flow

I’ve never really considered this site a blog. I might have joked about it, and called it such just because it’s where I dump stuff I’ve written, but Asteroid G really isn’t a blog. It’s a review and creative writing site mostly because I really like talking about crap that I’ve watched and played and I really hate talking about myself. In my head I’m boring and no one would ever want to know about me (do not try and tell me otherwise). So for decades at this point I’ve had one review site or another where I can talk about stuff I care about and not boring crap, like me. It works.

With that said, I also had the realization that I’ve been doing this, essentially non-stop, since 2000. 24 years of one project or another that I’ve always been working on. It started with my oldest site, The Domain (archived here although I can’t encourage you to read any of that crap), followed by the first version of The Inverted Castlevania Dungeon, and then my webcomic CVRPG, which went for 19 years before finally ending naturally. There was the first Asteroid G in there, a revamp in Tumblr as Musings of the Jewpacabra, and then back here for the current Asteroid G, plus a reboot of Castlevania: The Inverted Dungeon in 2015. It’s a lot of content, always sprayed out at regular intervals, and all just because I wanted to and I could.

It is, in fact, maybe too much after a while. I have noticed lately that I’ve been struggling with a bit of burn out. I sit down to do writing, like I always do, and my brain says “no.” My hand goes for my word processor and, instead of clicking on that, it moves over to YouTube and I end up zoning out for hours when I had time set aside to write. Clearly I didn’t want to write because I didn’t. It’s just weird for me because I’ve never run into this before, the wall that stops me from doing anything at all.

I’ve had small bouts of burn out, of course. A few days here or there where the act of making my web comic or writing an article is harder than normal, but nothing prolonged and this hard to push through. There’s always been momentum of one kind or another that dragged me out and got me moving again. When you make a webcomic that updated, at a minimum, five times a week (and sometimes as many as eleven times), narrative momentum absolutely would drag you along. You either met your deadlines or you failed and, thankfully, I never completely failed with CVRPG.

I think that’s actually what’s dragging at me: as silly as it is, since this is just a site for myself that, sometimes, people read, I shouldn’t really feel pressure to have to make content all the time. And when I fail to, I don’t need to feel like a failure about it. This isn’t my job, it’s my hobby. I have no one making demands on my time except myself but, apparently, I’m a hard task master because I expect that I need to make two articles a day on this site, and then also try and get regular updates over on ICVD as well.

You will note that I’ve barely been able to get updates out at all for my Castlevania site (which, sure, is in part because Konami isn’t really doing anything with the property so I feel less pressure to constantly keep up on my end) while updates over here have been staggered at best for the last month. The voice in my head has said, “hey, you gotta update,” and yet I just… can’t. And so I stare at my screen, don’t write anything, and then feel worse because, many days, nothing comes out.

This isn’t meant to be a dump, just saying what’s been going on. I don’t know how many readers here noticed or even thought anything of it that my updates have been fluctuating this last month. Some days were normal, and then others I just couldn’t get stuff out. And then I’d fail to put out the podcast as well (even though I have a few episodes recorded) just because I didn’t have other content to go along with. And then I’d fall behind, and would think about catching up, and then decided all of that was too much effort and let it all slack off. It was a whole thing.

Still, I just wanted to say that, yes, I know I’ve been wavering and there was a reason for that. I hope it wasn’t too pronounced and that no one that reads this site was like, “man, where are my articles?! I’m never coming back!” I like screaming out into the void for whoever is there to listen and I hope that all of you out there that do read like what I have to say on stuff like movies and books and food, etc. The fact that anyone reads is nice, and while I don’t have a huge following like other people online, this also keeps things nice and cozy and more fun, I think. No pressure except the pressure I put on myself (and shit, sometimes that is a lot, I guess).

I have a new strategy this month for how to organize and get stuff done, and I do feel at least a little more focused right now, so we’ll see. It’s a schedule I think I can stick to that should get the updates going once again at a regular clip without forcing me to push through as hard. If it works, the site will be back to seamless operation once more. But… yeah… have to see how this goes.

Anyway, that’s where I’ve been at and while the site didn’t get a ton of updates last month. Sorry about that. We’ll try and get back and track going forward. Thanks, all, for reading.