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Dec. 31st, 2009 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kolI am quite pleased with how today has turned out. There is a promise in the air, a chilled certainty that beyond tomorrow is an entirely new thing, untouched by the sufferings and joys of the past twelve months. A new thing, upon which anything could happen. It seems foolish to pin only hopes upon the new year when there will invariably be more than a handful of bad experiences along the way. This is why I rarely lay down specific goals for a new year beyond the vague and easy to accomplish all year.
It is one thing to expend the energy to hope and quite another entirely to become obsessed with the plan, which is what invariably happens when I turn to more focused goals.
On 2009's goals
2009 I maintained my chief goal for much of the year, a success I lay in the nature of it-- trying new things each month. It was vague enough to work, and I am pleased it did, as I am a creature of habit and often these habits can become painfully tunneled out, refusing to test a road when I can only see the one I'm digging. While I feel I could have satisfied this goal more, particularly in the difficult months of August-December, there was quite a few new adventures on the list, including allowing myself elevated to a managerial role at work. Thought it has been a miserable failure on a productivity and emotional level, I am learning and improving myself, and that is precisely how I need to handle the bad. And I forced myself out of my shell to travel all the way to Berkeley to meet with Angie, which was a lovely day and more than worth the trauma of the BART system. And I had a wonderful time with Pixie both times she made it out-- Fanime was not high on the fan experiences, but it was very rewarding with my friends, and that is precisely what I needed. And the week of Pixie was a delight and a solace of sanity before the craziness of the end of the year. And while Nanowrimo this year was a miserable creative failure, I know in my heart the reason was not of my own creative failings or procrastatory nature, but in the overworked and fatigued state I found myself in the last quarter of the year.
I survived, and while I did not thrive in the stressed environment, I have learned and improved, and that is all I ask for.
2009 was not the year of horrible suck that 2008 was; I quite enjoyed 3/4ths of the year, and to be honest my chief troubles were as family and work related as always. I knew going in that accepting a managerial role I'd be taking on a great burden, one I was half certain would break me. But I am unbroken, just a little bent, and it is a wonderful difference. If I can survive this, I am certain I can survive what 2010 throws me.
This was not a big year for creative endeavors, though I did manage to take quite a few beautiful pictures, and there were a few other creative highlights. But I wrote considerably less for Kingdom this year, and struggled through all of it. Writing is not coming as easily to me as it has in previous years, possibly because I am far more focused on the faults in my writing and become overwhelmed on a technical level instead of accepting that a first draft is a first draft, and I will return to fix what ails the piece later. And yet I am proud of several things I wrote this year, especially in the Kingdom logs that were finished or are almost concluded, such as Birds of a Feather and Running Up That Hill.
And on an artistic level, there was an obvious jump in abilities though the number of drawings plummeted. I am slowly improving figures and expressions, though I remain incredibly anxious when drawing with others to the point it utterly sabatoges my efforts. So there is work to be had there, but I think now that I am figuring out what is troubling me on both creative fronts, I can actually go about fixing them.
I cannot leave this section without a word on how amazing Kingdom has been this year-- my goal for creating a creative community thriving with close members is a success, largely because we have attracted such wonderful artists and writers. I love all the characters created this year, and I cannot begin to tell you what a boon Kingdom has been the last fourth of the year to my sanity. The members are mature enough that if they had problems, they actually talk about them and we can fix them, and to the best of my knowledge we have pretty much maintained zero wank since we began constructing the game in September of 2007. I am a very hands off, anything goes sort of GM, which only works when you have wonderful members who care about the game and each other, which Kingdom has all around. I am so proud of this game that the community built, and I really can't wait to see what everyone brings to the table in the next year. The game is a success because the members make it, and I cannot tell everyone enough how thankful and loving I am to all of you. There are not enough <3's in the world, but here are a few: <33333.
And it occurs to me that I have been curiously silent on the subject of CC, and as this is a year wrap up I really should talk about the game's unfortunate folding. I am pleased with how well I have handled my reaction to the game dying, as in previous years I would have run and hid and cried my eyes out and just never dealt with the situation. But options for saving and bettering were tossed in the dying, and I did my best, and that is really all you can do in these situations. There was no control to be had, and I won't beat myself up for not being able to save something that wasn't mine to save.
It helps to put the game's folding into perspective, I guess-- it cannot measure against the suffering my mother put me through growing up, and that's really all I want to say on that subject.
And I think I also benefited from the example of ANCD, because much as with that game, the characters will live on regardless of what state the game is in, and I suspect the story of the Neggies will continue on. Akemi is not lost forever, just as Dee remains years later.
And I think I benefited from Dolom's rejection, because I already had an emotional distance to the game; rationally I knew why she wouldn't fit, knew I couldn't force her in where she wasn't wanted, but it was difficult to separate that from that hateful voice inside that said it wasn't Dolom that was being deemed unfit, it was me. I am a terribly anxious thing that always takes rejections hard, but Dolom's killed long-app games for me completely-- what is the point of spending a year creating a character if she's not going to fit anyway? I much prefer Kingdom's short-app form, and the characters being more important than the plot. Which is not to say that CC's style is inherently bad, it just doesn't suit my particular creative anxieties, and as I've matured I've just realized I need to devote my time to games that don't have those sorts of nasty triggers. And yet, for my emotional distance, CC's death was a huge blow that I am still struggling to find the words for. I loved the game, but I loved the members more, and it really upsets me that I am no longer able to play with some of my favorite people as we no longer share games. I felt the same creative blow when MS finally died, because my RPG family was being broken up and there was nothing I could do to mend that fence. I want it clear that I don't point fingers in any direction when I say I am tired of wank and avoidable things killing games, as I do not feel that is what really killed CC off, but the long line of it in the past has made me tired and hurt and it just makes me want to work that much harder at keeping it out of Kingdom.
Because if Kingdom died, especially from a disease that could have been so easily fixed with people being open and working at fixing it, I don't think I could every bring myself to RP again, and that frightens me because RPing is a huge emotional release for me.
So I leave 2009 with only two games, Arcadia and Kingdom, with a stable of characters I still still want to play but have no place now. They are homeless, and it feels as if a part of me is homeless as well and I haven't the way to fix that and doubt I ever will.
I have many hopes for the new year, but the one closest to my heart and well being is to take the bad and find some truth to learn from it, so that I am not doomed forever to repeat that failure as I was in 2009. There will always be the bad, but things aren't hopeless, and you can really alleviate much of the pain by figuring out how to deal successfully with the things life throws at you. I lost my hope in December and very nearly broke, but I didn't, and I know that I won't let myself fall into the same traps again. I learned from 2004's breakdown, and I will definitely learn from 2009's comparably teeny tiny emofest.
There is struggle, but you push past and continue to grow. I just forgot how to grow for a few weeks there. ^.^;;
I have spoken to many about what my goals for 2010 are. While losing more weight and generally being more healthy are two things on the list, my featured goals of 2010 is, as always, vague and easy enough to obtain: to get things done and to go on adventures.
There has been a lack of progress, my life becoming overwhelmed by half-hearted attempts and pushing disappointments aside to pile up on the edges of my already nervous attention. It is easy to wallow in despair when all you can see is things you perceive to be failure, and I will not allow 2010 to suffer this. So I will accomplish things this year, even as small as finishing all the many logs I am behind on in Kingdom, and I will be happy with what I have accomplished. Sometimes the mountain is made up of small accomplishments, and that is what I want 2010 to be. A lot of small bursts of happy productivity adding up to a successful and wonderful year. I can do this, and I *will* do this.
And on the adventure front... I need to explore, to feel uncertain earth beneath my feet. Need to open the mind up to all the world has to offer, to see for myself all the wonderful things I've turned a blind eye to. It is difficult to be happy when you are trapped in a room of your own baggage, so I will move beyond this as I deal with that baggage with the first goal, and go on adventures to restore my badly diminished creative spirit. My adventures are frequently quite small and mundane when compared to some, but I will treasure each experience and restore that joy to my heart.
I am also returning to my journals. It has been several years since I have kept one, and my fingers have been itching for compositions of a non-creative account. A narrative of progress, a look at how I am handling things and the observations that frequently are too personal to go up on an online journal. I have begun already, keeping words on my short time here in Palo Alto, which has restored my mind and spirit and given me hope for what tomorrow will bring.
There are many unhappy things in my life, but many more that I am pleased with, content with, enriched by. And focusing on these while keeping an eye out for the spiraling behavior that plagued the end of 2009 will be a great boon for the approaching new year, I think, without being an additional burden. I have every confidence I can nip the depressive behavior before it flares up into another cycle. Because that's one of the gifts 2004 gave me, the understanding of why I cannot allow myself to wallow in my weaknesses, allow the bad to consume the good, allow my mind to see only the terrors that exist around.
There will always be bad things included with the good, you simply must have the correct perspective on these things not to be overwhelmed. There is always a new day, always a new way to look at things, and this is precisely what I want to learn from 2010.
It will be a good year because I will make it one.
It is one thing to expend the energy to hope and quite another entirely to become obsessed with the plan, which is what invariably happens when I turn to more focused goals.
On 2009's goals
2009 I maintained my chief goal for much of the year, a success I lay in the nature of it-- trying new things each month. It was vague enough to work, and I am pleased it did, as I am a creature of habit and often these habits can become painfully tunneled out, refusing to test a road when I can only see the one I'm digging. While I feel I could have satisfied this goal more, particularly in the difficult months of August-December, there was quite a few new adventures on the list, including allowing myself elevated to a managerial role at work. Thought it has been a miserable failure on a productivity and emotional level, I am learning and improving myself, and that is precisely how I need to handle the bad. And I forced myself out of my shell to travel all the way to Berkeley to meet with Angie, which was a lovely day and more than worth the trauma of the BART system. And I had a wonderful time with Pixie both times she made it out-- Fanime was not high on the fan experiences, but it was very rewarding with my friends, and that is precisely what I needed. And the week of Pixie was a delight and a solace of sanity before the craziness of the end of the year. And while Nanowrimo this year was a miserable creative failure, I know in my heart the reason was not of my own creative failings or procrastatory nature, but in the overworked and fatigued state I found myself in the last quarter of the year.
I survived, and while I did not thrive in the stressed environment, I have learned and improved, and that is all I ask for.
2009 was not the year of horrible suck that 2008 was; I quite enjoyed 3/4ths of the year, and to be honest my chief troubles were as family and work related as always. I knew going in that accepting a managerial role I'd be taking on a great burden, one I was half certain would break me. But I am unbroken, just a little bent, and it is a wonderful difference. If I can survive this, I am certain I can survive what 2010 throws me.
On the Creative Front
This was not a big year for creative endeavors, though I did manage to take quite a few beautiful pictures, and there were a few other creative highlights. But I wrote considerably less for Kingdom this year, and struggled through all of it. Writing is not coming as easily to me as it has in previous years, possibly because I am far more focused on the faults in my writing and become overwhelmed on a technical level instead of accepting that a first draft is a first draft, and I will return to fix what ails the piece later. And yet I am proud of several things I wrote this year, especially in the Kingdom logs that were finished or are almost concluded, such as Birds of a Feather and Running Up That Hill.
And on an artistic level, there was an obvious jump in abilities though the number of drawings plummeted. I am slowly improving figures and expressions, though I remain incredibly anxious when drawing with others to the point it utterly sabatoges my efforts. So there is work to be had there, but I think now that I am figuring out what is troubling me on both creative fronts, I can actually go about fixing them.
I cannot leave this section without a word on how amazing Kingdom has been this year-- my goal for creating a creative community thriving with close members is a success, largely because we have attracted such wonderful artists and writers. I love all the characters created this year, and I cannot begin to tell you what a boon Kingdom has been the last fourth of the year to my sanity. The members are mature enough that if they had problems, they actually talk about them and we can fix them, and to the best of my knowledge we have pretty much maintained zero wank since we began constructing the game in September of 2007. I am a very hands off, anything goes sort of GM, which only works when you have wonderful members who care about the game and each other, which Kingdom has all around. I am so proud of this game that the community built, and I really can't wait to see what everyone brings to the table in the next year. The game is a success because the members make it, and I cannot tell everyone enough how thankful and loving I am to all of you. There are not enough <3's in the world, but here are a few: <33333.
And it occurs to me that I have been curiously silent on the subject of CC, and as this is a year wrap up I really should talk about the game's unfortunate folding. I am pleased with how well I have handled my reaction to the game dying, as in previous years I would have run and hid and cried my eyes out and just never dealt with the situation. But options for saving and bettering were tossed in the dying, and I did my best, and that is really all you can do in these situations. There was no control to be had, and I won't beat myself up for not being able to save something that wasn't mine to save.
It helps to put the game's folding into perspective, I guess-- it cannot measure against the suffering my mother put me through growing up, and that's really all I want to say on that subject.
And I think I also benefited from the example of ANCD, because much as with that game, the characters will live on regardless of what state the game is in, and I suspect the story of the Neggies will continue on. Akemi is not lost forever, just as Dee remains years later.
And I think I benefited from Dolom's rejection, because I already had an emotional distance to the game; rationally I knew why she wouldn't fit, knew I couldn't force her in where she wasn't wanted, but it was difficult to separate that from that hateful voice inside that said it wasn't Dolom that was being deemed unfit, it was me. I am a terribly anxious thing that always takes rejections hard, but Dolom's killed long-app games for me completely-- what is the point of spending a year creating a character if she's not going to fit anyway? I much prefer Kingdom's short-app form, and the characters being more important than the plot. Which is not to say that CC's style is inherently bad, it just doesn't suit my particular creative anxieties, and as I've matured I've just realized I need to devote my time to games that don't have those sorts of nasty triggers. And yet, for my emotional distance, CC's death was a huge blow that I am still struggling to find the words for. I loved the game, but I loved the members more, and it really upsets me that I am no longer able to play with some of my favorite people as we no longer share games. I felt the same creative blow when MS finally died, because my RPG family was being broken up and there was nothing I could do to mend that fence. I want it clear that I don't point fingers in any direction when I say I am tired of wank and avoidable things killing games, as I do not feel that is what really killed CC off, but the long line of it in the past has made me tired and hurt and it just makes me want to work that much harder at keeping it out of Kingdom.
Because if Kingdom died, especially from a disease that could have been so easily fixed with people being open and working at fixing it, I don't think I could every bring myself to RP again, and that frightens me because RPing is a huge emotional release for me.
So I leave 2009 with only two games, Arcadia and Kingdom, with a stable of characters I still still want to play but have no place now. They are homeless, and it feels as if a part of me is homeless as well and I haven't the way to fix that and doubt I ever will.
On 2010's hopes and goals
I have many hopes for the new year, but the one closest to my heart and well being is to take the bad and find some truth to learn from it, so that I am not doomed forever to repeat that failure as I was in 2009. There will always be the bad, but things aren't hopeless, and you can really alleviate much of the pain by figuring out how to deal successfully with the things life throws at you. I lost my hope in December and very nearly broke, but I didn't, and I know that I won't let myself fall into the same traps again. I learned from 2004's breakdown, and I will definitely learn from 2009's comparably teeny tiny emofest.
There is struggle, but you push past and continue to grow. I just forgot how to grow for a few weeks there. ^.^;;
I have spoken to many about what my goals for 2010 are. While losing more weight and generally being more healthy are two things on the list, my featured goals of 2010 is, as always, vague and easy enough to obtain: to get things done and to go on adventures.
There has been a lack of progress, my life becoming overwhelmed by half-hearted attempts and pushing disappointments aside to pile up on the edges of my already nervous attention. It is easy to wallow in despair when all you can see is things you perceive to be failure, and I will not allow 2010 to suffer this. So I will accomplish things this year, even as small as finishing all the many logs I am behind on in Kingdom, and I will be happy with what I have accomplished. Sometimes the mountain is made up of small accomplishments, and that is what I want 2010 to be. A lot of small bursts of happy productivity adding up to a successful and wonderful year. I can do this, and I *will* do this.
And on the adventure front... I need to explore, to feel uncertain earth beneath my feet. Need to open the mind up to all the world has to offer, to see for myself all the wonderful things I've turned a blind eye to. It is difficult to be happy when you are trapped in a room of your own baggage, so I will move beyond this as I deal with that baggage with the first goal, and go on adventures to restore my badly diminished creative spirit. My adventures are frequently quite small and mundane when compared to some, but I will treasure each experience and restore that joy to my heart.
I am also returning to my journals. It has been several years since I have kept one, and my fingers have been itching for compositions of a non-creative account. A narrative of progress, a look at how I am handling things and the observations that frequently are too personal to go up on an online journal. I have begun already, keeping words on my short time here in Palo Alto, which has restored my mind and spirit and given me hope for what tomorrow will bring.
There are many unhappy things in my life, but many more that I am pleased with, content with, enriched by. And focusing on these while keeping an eye out for the spiraling behavior that plagued the end of 2009 will be a great boon for the approaching new year, I think, without being an additional burden. I have every confidence I can nip the depressive behavior before it flares up into another cycle. Because that's one of the gifts 2004 gave me, the understanding of why I cannot allow myself to wallow in my weaknesses, allow the bad to consume the good, allow my mind to see only the terrors that exist around.
There will always be bad things included with the good, you simply must have the correct perspective on these things not to be overwhelmed. There is always a new day, always a new way to look at things, and this is precisely what I want to learn from 2010.
It will be a good year because I will make it one.
