The conclusion I came to is that I simply need to cut down on how much stuff I'm trying to do. Which, again, is the same conclusion I come to every week, but this time... this time, something absolutely massive has to actually change.
The plan I came up with was that apart from tasks that are meant to be weekly endeavors -- things like the podcast, the retrospectives, gaming videos, and now the new Zoom meetings -- I only work on two projects at a time. As I'm currently making strides on Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices and Irregular Fantasy, wanting the former to be finished as soon as possible because many people are expecting it, and really hoping the latter can make a big splash on the 20th anniversary of Irregular Webcomic, those'll be the two projects I stay focused on.
Two invasive thoughts prevent the breakdown from ending. If anything, it's so much worse than before.
One: I don't want any of my projects delayed. The people involved will be older, the world will be different, and I want my stories to be reflective of right here, right now. Of course, this is something I've struggled with for decades (technically, yes, decades plural, when I was ten I hoped to write and star in a big fantasy movie by the time I was not much older than ten) and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Two: Even this reduced agenda is still way too much for me to handle.
And that whole thing led to me spending forty minutes sitting motionless but exerting enormous mental effort to suppress a flood of suicidal plans and desires. That was emotionally draining. That'll definitely prevent the podcast coming out in time...
Indeed not. Spent the whole day trying to figure out how there can possibly be less on my plate. It's not going well, not well at all, I tried sorting things into, like, high-priority, medium-priority, low-priority. Put way too many things into high-priority, but, like... we'll see how that works out.
Okay: I've narrowed it all down not just to high-priority projects, but rather, individual tasks within each project that fall into the various priorities. It left me with, like... four other people who each have one high-priority task to attend to, and like twenty-one high-priority tasks for just me. Meh, I'll space them out. They'll happen eventually.
The day of writing this particular paragraph, I wanted to devote myself fully to the task of going through all of my documents and organizing them. "For a fully organized life!", as I keep telling myself. I don't know why I keep thinking things like that will only take one day; the day's nearly over and I'm almost finished organizing one document, the one about my ideas for Irregular Fantasy. Ah, well, nothing for it but to continue the task for an hour or so every day until it's done. I think this one's important enough to actually do daily, unlike the Whirlwind rewriting, which I actually haven't been attending to.
Hmm, here's another thought. I'll have to remember to tag a few people and consult them about this matter once this blog is posted. I was just talking to Naty, and she was expressing similar moodiness to my own from earlier in this post about the world always changing... it's a pain, to be sure.
She reminded me of our loose sorta-plan that I would join her in Sweden after she finishes her long road of remedial courses to get her high school diploma and starts taking college courses. She gave me an ETA: at the earliest, she can finish those courses in mid-2021. Then, college education. In Sweden, where you don't have to pay for it and probably get, like, more help.
That reminded me that maybe I've been going in the wrong direction with my own plans. I'm going to Quincy as soon as I possibly can, hopefully I'll have started house-hunting by the time this post comes out, something I intend to announce with a great big post on all my social media, with a pic of myself and my elderly doggo for sympathy points. And I'd made a couple of plans for after reaching Quincy which certainly seem to suggest that being a very permanent direction -- plans such as getting all of my possessions from my mom's house, aunt's house, and grandpa's house and gathering together everything I've ever owned into what is now my house; and getting a desktop computer, for better processing and gaming power than a laptop. Probably shouldn't do either of those things if I'm just passing through Quincy on my way to Sweden, whenever my immigration papers get processed and then, you know, Americans stop being shitheads about the pandemic and are allowed to go to other countries.
So... yeah... going to Quincy and hammering down some very deep stakes is probably not the best thing to do for my relationship right now, but I absolutely have to go to Quincy before I go to Sweden, I have promises to keep there. I cast a bunch of people in Keys & Kingdoms: The Choices. I skipped town back in 2018 before I could star in Better Yet? as I promised I would. And now I'm expected to start developing The Trivia Box. I feel bad enough that I talked a lot of talk about arriving in Quincy in late June to get all that stuff started and then failed to do so; I'd never forgive myself if I backed out of it completely.
So, Quincy is a thing that has to happen, even if temporarily. Temporarily is fine! If I just set up some stuff in person -- meeting with the guy at the recording studio with my budget and plans and then getting the voice work for the pilots and stuff, developing and producing like a first season for The Trivia Box -- then from there, maybe I can keep everything going remotely, do my writing and directing from Sweden. Wonderful things we can do from across the sea these days! Just probably a little bit awkward to get things started that way.
So, uh, to some up, the plan is "Quincy, then Sweden, then Quincy again after Naty graduates"... uh, what do you think, you reading this?
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