90 Days Later - June 2024 Writing Update?

90 Days Later

June 2024 Writing Update?

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It's been about 90 days since I last wrote. 

Well - that's a half-truth. I haven't considered myself a writer for about 90 days now, mainly because I wanted to explore other avenues and see who I was without the whole author part of my identity taking up all the space. 

... That's a half-truth, too. That was maybe only half of the reason.

But have you ever felt like that? Like you've been defining yourself by this one thing for so long, and you start to wonder if maybe there's something else you could do? For me this feeling was magnified ninety days ago, when my soul was drenched with the news of infuriatingly horrible atrocities. To be fair, it's been several months since the news has been neck-deep in the evils of humanity, but about 90 days ago I hit my limit. Buildings burning, bodies burning, souls burning... It's hard to feel like what you're doing is worth a damn when the world is on fire. 

Can you relate?

I hope so.

I felt a little like writing was maybe not the best use of my time. Like maybe writing was a waste of my time. Like I could have been doing more. What kind of more? I'm not sure. I don't know. Just - something. But that feeling of helplessness never really went away, and I found myself unable to do much of anything at all. Which, of course, kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. So, I started trying out all this other stuff. Not exactly helpful stuff, but just - something.

Game design has stuck the most - so much so that I completed a certified course in the topic, scoured the internet for valuable resources and created my own personal game design curriculum, and am currently prototyping a game that I'm sure already exists somewhere. Now and again, I slip back into worldbuilding and narrative design out of habit - all part of the game design experience, certainly, but probably not what I want to be focusing on the most at this early stage in the design process. As far as scratching that creative itch, this has done that very well. As far as doing something helpful - something of worth in the big scheme of things - the less said the better.

And then there's the pixel art. It's been great fun putting together pixel art pieces and animating them. Here's a little ghostie I made based on a Pixel Overload tutorial:

I wish I could say I've gotten a whole lot better since then, but that would be a bit of a lie. Turns out, pixel art is tough. I have a long way to go. And again, as far as doing something that will help, the world is still on fire, and I have a handful of pixel art sprites. Not doing too great, am I? 

Journaling has been an on-and-off thing. I'm used to audio-journaling, so writing has been a nice change every now and then, and believe it or not, I've actually reached the end of my journal which I bought back in high school. Better late than never. But it's a rare thing, since not a lot is happening, and there's never much to report.

Russian has been an interest for a long while, but without a tutor, I've struggled to get into it. Lately, I decided to just sit down and try. I've got books, I've got the internet, and I've got my brain. It's gotta count for something, right? But I'm still in the elementary stages, so I won't be translating my stories anytime soon. 

I also did a little pottery. There's... really not much else to say. If you want to stay sane, do something with your hands. Pottery, painting, woodworking, carpentry, gardening - whatever. Step out of the virtual sphere and do something that gives you actual physical results. It's a good grounding exercise.

Then there's the English language teaching. I've shared this before, but I have taught English as a Foreign Language and English as a Second Language in the past, and I've been interested in diving back into that arena recently. At least, that way, I can be of some help to people, in some way. It wouldn't be for nothing. It wouldn't be a waste. Education never is. So, I've been taking more courses to up my professional qualifications, working on a range of curricula and different teaching approaches, and just generally trying to see where that takes me.

And where it seems to be taking me is a round-trip back to writing, because I've re-ignited my passion for teaching, and therefore re-ignited my passion for teaching creative writing, and of course my creative writing workshops and courses which I have been working on for some time now are moving forward once more.

Which is why I guess that first line was only a half-truth. I've been writing, but in different ways. I've written short bios for characters, and short dialogue scripts for games, and journal entries, and so on. 

Now, I've come to a sort of conclusion. I looks like I'm just never going to be able to outrun the creative writer in my mind. No matter what I'm doing or where I'm at, I seem to find myself easily slipping back into the role of writer: thinking about story ideas, thinking about characters, getting a line in my head that I want to write down because it's perfect, and wrestling with the boundless inspiration that seeps through my bones while experiencing a great piece of fiction. Not to mention teaching creative writing has been a big desire of mine for some time, too. 

And education isn't a waste of time, right? It's worthy. It's valuable. It's a good something to dedicate yourself to, even while the world is burning. 

There's a lot I can do with that. Creative writing resources, English language courses, creative writing workshops and courses, ebooks and workbooks - and of course, Scrittorio Magazine, which I'm set to start working on again in the next month. More on that coming soon.

What about you? How are you handling the whole world-on-fire-around-you thing? How are you moving forward while people just like you are facing incomprehensible cruelty? It's certainly nothing new, I'll grant you that, but with the way we're connected these days, it's definitely 100% more in your face than ever before. How do you deal with that? 

I don't know... And I'd like to hear what you think. In the meantime, I don't think I can confidently say I'm back from my hiatus, because I'm not really going to be working on anything related to Hyba Is Writing other than Scrittorio Magazine and other educational content. But maybe soon.