Stress and My Creative Process

Stress. The last two months, for me, have felt like floating in a dull, endless ocean of stress.

At the end of last month, I felt a surge of desire and motivation to write and publish my own D&D adventure (Disturbance at Dusk, available on the DMs Guild). The idea for that adventure came from a lot of places, and the writing and encounters came from twisting some old adventures I made and creating lot of brand new pieces. Whenever I sat down at my tiny desk in my cold room in the week leading up October 1st, I had a lot of positive energy helping me drive myself and the writing forward, helping me progress, helping me come up with new ideas. In four days I wrote over 14,000 words, or about 3,500 a day—2,000 words a day is my goal on days I try to dedicate entirely to writing, and most of the time that writing isn't so completely focused on one story. Around 8,000 of those words made it into the final product, and I had so many other ideas that I never fleshed out and incorporated.

After spending one last day re-reading and editing and tweaking, I published it. It felt great. I immediately wanted to continue working on the next chapter of that adventure, and for a day I did. Then I realized how completely exhausted I was. I needed time to recharge, and I couldn't help but dwell on all the parts of the adventure that could have been better. So, I decided to take a few days off. In that time, my forward momentum stopped, as I expected from resting, relaxing, taking time away from the pen and paper and the keyboard and bright computer monitor. After that break, I wanted to get back into gear, build up that momentum and positive energy again, write and design more cool things for another adventure and have it ready to publish two weeks after my first (yesterday, at the time of publishing this blog post). But, life and stress got in the way.
  The positive energy and forward momentum I had a couple of weeks ago became negative energy and heavy, inert weight dragging me and my ability to create new things and put together ideas. The thoughts of "I can do this," and "this will be good" became "I can't do this," and "this will never work." And not just about writing another adventure. As the days of personal and family business continued, it also became about life in general and my ability to create anything. My desire to write and make is still high, but my ability to do so, my ability to lift the proverbial weight around my ankles and shoulders feels miserable. Now, it feels like I have no ability whatsoever to change anything around me, from being able to put words to paper (or monitor) to putting food on my own plate. It feels like this cycle, like it has countless times throughout my life, will never end.

Some things I know I am in control of, deep down I know I am, but the feeling that I'm not is unshakeable. Others I know I'm not in control of—getting a call back after applying for a new job, the weather cooperating as it gets colder, anything my family is doing or not doing, saddening (and maddening) world news—I know shouldn't feel bad for not being able to control, shouldn't feel as defeated as I do because I couldn't have changed it, but the more my mind dwells on it the worse it feels whether I want to think about it or not.

Being a creative person, to me, at least in this moment, seems to mean that life will be filled with the most vibrant, positive highs but also the most gray, negative lows. Things are rarely even-keel. And when they're at a point, it will never not feel like that low point will ever end, or never return.

For now, I will to do my best to keep moving forward, and have to trust in myself that I can reach another high point in the future full of forward momentum by slogging through the muck in the present.

Thanks for everyone who has purchased Disturbance at Dusk, reads this blog, and follows me on social media. Your mostly silent presence is strange, but nonetheless supportive and motivating.