It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
When I began this series on the Eighteenth Station, it (almost) always began with a question—generally about storytelling or my favorite form of storytelling, animation—followed by conjecture based on my exposure and experience. They were a bit time consuming, because I tried to pull in other resources in a way that made the ‘station,’ or post, more like an article rather than, well, a blog post. But I took care to keep them informal; keep them more of a conversation rather than a thesis, perhaps to the ire of academics. But, they aren’t my main audience, are they? I’m not expecting my station to become a great source to citate. I like to keep things business casual.
The keen of you already noticed, at this point, that the leading question doesn’t fit the mold, does it? “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” …? What kind of question is that? That has nothing to do with storytelling! Well, I never did commit to a strict format for this series, did I? Sometimes, it’s good to break things, because, when you do, people notice. If you want anything to become a great signifier of something important, the trick is to create a reliable pattern, get people comfortable with it, then break it. Witty quips aside, the main shtick of “Childish Rambling” is to start a conversation without necessarily providing a concrete conclusion. We’re not handling objective truths here; logic and best practices may be involved, but down to the core, these are very subjective, deeply personal truths, because, as the previous decade has made apparent, facts hardly ever connect with people on a primal level. And my, will this station be deeply personal.
I am in a bit of a rut. It happens every year; I realized this once I started using the station to document my thoughts. See, the trouble with creatives is they are hard to please—hardly ever satisfied. I don’t remember if I said this on or off-platform, but artistry really is a masochistic activity. Some of the most powerful artists are the ones that thrive at constantly beating themselves down before they pull out something masterful. Finding oneself in a rut is completely natural, yet it is always frightening—at least for someone like me who is starting out, especially for those who can’t just put their pen down. The machine needs to keep running. Business, after all, rarely forgives. Only the most household brands such as Nintendo are afforded reasonable forgiveness for delays and changes in schedule. It can feel terrible, yes; satisfaction plummets and motivation to do anything is just gone. You question the value of your work and perhaps fret over whether you would ever be able to achieve your dream project in your lifetime, not just in some smaller capacity, but in its full glory. Yet, it seems, it is all the better for the content if you fully embrace it. Don’t deny or fight it. That will only extend the length of the trough.
So far, the healthiest way I’ve found to deal with low motivation is to create content out of it. When I found myself in the first rut since the station’s establishment, I wrote Station 16, titled “Burnout.” Then again, with Station 46, this time titled “Brief Respite.” And Station 69 sort of went along in a similar manner, though it was more preemptive. And what I did notice with Sixteen is I came back a few weeks later to write “A Bud in the Rising Sun,” a short story I still consider to be one of my favorites, even if I believe it is rather boring to readers who can’t pick up its nuances. This was a case where embracing the rut did prove to help churn my creativity. Forty-six is a bit more complicated. Even after that admission, I came back to write what I felt was a lackluster series, “The Extent of Love.” “The Strongest Emotion” series, which followed shortly after, was a bit of fun, but still wasn’t something I really connected with. It took all the way until Station 60, fourteen stations later—which, I must emphasize, is fourteen weeks later, almost a third of a year—before I wrote what I felt was something special enough to break the drought: a story called “Treasured Pair.” Up until that point, it was the longest story I’d written for the station, coming in at eight chapters and around 13,900 words. Not only that, but it was a fantasy genre short involving magical systems, which I always found more difficult than copying points of time in reality. What made that story sweeter was the fact that, in terms of process, it could serve as a prototype for writing “Wanderer,” a series that will be phenomenally lengthier to undertake and quite a dream to accomplish.
But then, I grew too comfortable. Subconsciously, I thought I figured it out. I preempted a trough with Sixty-nine, which, to give myself some credit—I don’t quite remember—I likely did on the basis of transparency, warning I expected a rut to come fairly soon. However, perhaps there was some naivety that it would substitute as the creative spark; as if, once the rut did arrive, this admission would be there to immediately jump start me to the next peak. I do not believe it did. Maybe “Garden of Weeds” wasn’t as lackluster of a story as it felt for me to write. Yet, it feels like “Treasured Pair” was the last time I felt any sort of climatic vigor, where I’m like, “Yeah! This really is a masterpiece I’m proud of.” Even “Of A Flower,” a story I spent three years on and is the personal candidate for my first publication, did not elicit that same euphoria. Well, you could argue it does not have a conclusion yet—not even close, something “Treasured Pair” has going for it. Still, that’s quite a while to wait for a peak, especially given the new format I adopted with “Garden of Weeds.”
The decision to split chapters into parts, or installments, took inspiration from Japanese light novels that are serialized in magazines before they are later anthologized. It was a sustainability decision I took as I transitioned out of academia into the corporate world. However, in retrospect, it was a dangerous decision to dive into without a concrete plan. Because the station posts once every week, splitting the story into small chunks drags it out, especially when this is four parts we’re talking about. Imagine instead of the eight weeks it took to push out “Treasured Pair,” it took thirty two weeks. A much more comfortable pace for sure, but it would completely take over the entire station. Would the story retain the reader’s interest for that long? Or would they eventually get bored and move on from the station?
I suppose it depends on the audience. For such a dialogue and action-focused piece like “Treasured Pair,” stretching it out into thirty two weeks would be an arduous wait, especially given how simple some of its chapters are. On the other hand, a story like “Garden of Weeds,” with plenty of exposition, may turn out fine. Of course, it is ideal to have the entire chapter come out at once, but the fact of the matter is: exposition is hard. Not only do you need to think about what to write or how to write it, but when to write and why. Roughly speaking, it felt like I dedicated the same amount of time for one chapter of “Treasured Pair” as I am spending for one fourth of a chapter of “Of A Flower.” The timeline of events for “Of A Flower” is much more complicated, however, with plenty of theming and foreshadowing. So there is much more to manage. And because I want to finish this story as soon as possible, it did end up dominating the posting schedule for the station. Which, I guess, is fine. I’m not sure if it’s retaining interest or turning people away; the station hardly gets any discussion or feedback, partially because I don’t really push my platform. In fact, I hardly do any kind of marketing beyond an occasional post to my small Facebook circle. I don’t do paid promotions, promote myself on writing forums, nor reach out to small publishers. As far as I’m aware, most of the readership the station receives comes from people who somehow found this blog through WordPress, and hardly interact with it other than dropping an occasional Like (which, by the way, thank you). I could do a better job promoting the station, but honestly, I’m comfortable with laying low for now, and I also have other priorities.
Most of my efforts for the past two years were focused towards making progress on my day job, wherein lies my antagonism. For what reason am I putting so much effort into my job when it isn’t what I’m truly passionate about? When it’s just a stepping stone that I’m making very slow progress with? It would be easy for anyone else in my shoes to say, “you get what you pay for,” and put in the minimum amount of effort they feel their employers deserve. But I’m not one who can easily half-ass anything with a straight face; I believe in excellence in whatever you do, which, as with everything, has its advantages and disadvantages. And taking out your displeasure with your job is not entirely cricket. For one, it’s not the fault of your colleagues, who really have no say in how much you get paid. Second, it’s just not productive to hold a grudge against a company entity. Sure, there comes a time when change should be rallied for—that’s what unions are for—but companies are complex machines that should not be treated as you would with a person, even if they work hard to make a singular figure the face and personality of the company, such as Apple or Nvidia.
Anyway, passion projects. The idea was brought back to my mind after watching an old reaction to a livestream video. There was a comment about how you could tell whenever a game is a passion project. And as a creator myself, not of games, but stories, I had to ask: What about my passion project? There is only one project I currently feel is capable of carrying that mantle. One I can obsess over and forget the rest of the world. One I have spent longer than “Of A Flower” on and has survived several rewrites, starting from scratch.
I’ll break it out that I see “Of A Flower” as a transition project to get myself out there; a stepping stone towards not just writing “Wanderer,” but producing it. Yet, every time my passion falls into a trough, I always wonder: What’s the point? What’s the point of doing all these small projects to build up your repertoire before really chasing that dream project? With all the ways to die, why wait? Obviously, the logical answer is to build experience and demonstrate your competence; show to other people you’re not a one-hit wonder, incapable of producing anything else interesting if you’re not able to work on your passion project anymore. Yet… is that not the point of some passion projects? Lifetime projects that will eventually become the only work the vast majority of people remember you for, like Tezuka’s Phoenix, or J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. I suppose the risk is, if you never get to that breaking point, then that’s all you would have ever done. You never tried anything different, possibly discovered a project that could have elicited a stronger passion from you, or participated in something that at least gave you the ideas to bring back to your project and kick it off. I have certainly given other projects my passion. It’s not like I’m incapable of living in someone else’s creative universe for the time being. But I’m always applying my experience back to what I want to do with “Wanderer.” Is that enough? Would anyone bring you into their project if they know you have a higher objective? Is passion in some form not good enough, even if it’s not the obsessive passion you know you’re capable of?
Of course, this is all retrospect. Like I said before, this is a fairly subjective analysis. I might be trying to make sense of a pattern that might not be there at all.