Depression and Writing - My Difficulties in Finishing Archmage


Gamer Life General Discussion

51 to 100 of 109 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>

For a while, I've been thinking that maybe my depression-fueled lack of progress is something of a defense mechanism against suicide. So long as I have more and more things I'm not done with yet, I am more reluctant to kill myself.

I feel like I genuinely do want to die, but I also want to work on my stuff. Too bad there's no way to die and keep working. I cannot abide my own existence, nor can I abide unfinished work. But if I finish it, my reason to be is gone.

Bleh.


You could try to work yourself to death?

Also, try starting more and more projects so you constantly have a spare few unfinished and thus reason to keep living.


That is what I do. I just don't have the will to finish any.


Umbral I know in the past you have said that you would like people to offer some criticism of the work and not just pats on the back so I've been trying to find something critical to say which is tricky because your setting really feels right to me.

The names you have created for things really resonate with me, I am sensitive to that sort of thing, a lot of names irritate me. Words and language interest me a lot, I like when the sound of a word contains a seed of it's meaning. Your deity names for example have a wonderful numinosity about them.


Having lost loved ones to depression your post are very hard to read. I know you claim that the post is for advice with world building and not about depression but yet you keep bringing it up.

The Paizo forums are great at many things but discussing suicide is a difficult task for a crew that can't even agree if Murderhobo is an offensive term or not.

I sincerely hope you find a happiness in life that goes beyond the tiresome task of working project to project as life sustenance.

Peace be with you UB.

-MD


Muad'Dib wrote:

Having lost loved ones to depression your post are very hard to read. I know you claim that the post is for advice with world building and not about depression but yet you keep bringing it up.

The Paizo forums are great at many things but discussing suicide is a difficult task for a crew that can't even agree if Murderhobo is an offensive term or not.

I sincerely hope you find a happiness in life that goes beyond the tiresome task of working project to project as life sustenance.

Peace be with you UB.

-MD

Seconding Maud'Dib's words.

I'll leave some comments in the actual thread once I've had a chance to read and digest some of it.

Be as well as you are able.

The Exchange

Umbral Reaver wrote:

For a while, I've been thinking that maybe my depression-fueled lack of progress is something of a defense mechanism against suicide. So long as I have more and more things I'm not done with yet, I am more reluctant to kill myself.

I feel like I genuinely do want to die, but I also want to work on my stuff. Too bad there's no way to die and keep working. I cannot abide my own existence, nor can I abide unfinished work. But if I finish it, my reason to be is gone.

Bleh.

I hear you on the terror of finishing work.

When I was seriously depressed, I couldn't write, and such end-goal work didn't help me. I found that playing an instrument helped. I didn't derive joy from practicing scales, but it was something that I could do and keep improving at, with audible progress, and that never had an end-goal; you can't ever really "finish" practicing scales and there's never a point when I could say "I can't get any better at Minuet in G."

I don't know if that will help you manage your depression because I don't know if you play an instrument, but possibly you could take one up? The recorder is pretty low-barrier to getting started.

Another thing that helps me with winter depression (SAD) is getting as much sunlight as I can during daylight hours. Eating lots of turkey and other tryptophan foods also helps. I don't know if you have SAD, but it's possible such a condition can intensify existing depression and it can easily go unrecognized.


It's actually Summer here.


Hmm. Summer for me too. I actually prefer the cold... ;)

And pretty sure Grimmy said exactly the same thing I did in your thread - the deities names resonate well with me...

P.S. Mikaze recently linked your Armiger in an Iron Gods thread. I think I alread did that too... Just poking you about it. Again. Endlessly. :p


I know. D:

I think it's probably playable as is? If you resurrect the armiger thread, I could look over comments to see if anything needs to be changed. I don't remember too much about where I got up to.


Umbral Reaver wrote:

I've tried similar. It doesn't work.

I start trying to do something useful... then end up lying on the floor lamenting my existence instead.

Well, yeah... I do that too, sometimes.


Belated new year's resolution!

Write at least a page of Archmage content (rules or fluff) per week. I think I can manage that.


Resolution failed already!

Damnit. Oh well. I'm still occasionally posting tidbits over on the main thread. Go have a look and comment! As usual, interaction keeps me going. The more I get, the more I produce.


Managed another meagre update. Ugh. So tired.


Since I'm feeling super tired and lonely here, I'm taking a different angle.

Character creation!

All the required information to make at least basic characters is posted up in the main thread here.

I'd like to get people engaged by guiding them through generating a character. Hopefully this will prompt questions that will then prompt me to flesh out the world more!

And make the rules better too. That's also nice.

Go for it!


For what it's worth, I am reading it. I haven't had time to comment or get heavily involved due to other obligations, work, and my own projects, but I do look in every time you update.

I like most of what I see =)


If you want to post on the mechanics, please post your comments over in the suggestions/homebrew thread so we have all of them in one place. :)


Orthos wrote:

For what it's worth, I am reading it. I haven't had time to comment or get heavily involved due to other obligations, work, and my own projects, but I do look in every time you update.

I like most of what I see =)

Everything Orthos said, plus: Part of my own depression therapy is to write and post my world-building essays as well as my serial fiction. I can't say it will work for you, but I hope you know that there are some of us who see you doing it and are proud of you for it. :)


Thanks for the encouragement!

I posted up a sample character build, with a step by step process.


So, I just got a strongly negative comment in my main thread. I couldn't make much sense of it, but it still hit me hard. I shouldn't respond so emotionally. It's just one comment and it doesn't even say anything useful but it makes me feel worthless.

Damn this depression! It makes me feel things that have no logical basis!


That about gimping the mages? It seemed totally tongue in check. Unless it was absolutely serious but then it was, well, ridiculously useless. Try to ignore it.


Seemed serious to me. Like seriously stupid. Why someone would bother commenting so unconstructively on a thread they could just ignore, I don't get.

Unless it was the dorf thread. I was going to post something extremely negative there, but at least I was going to put a ":p" in so people knew I was just poking fun. Dorfs are stupid. Even yours UR, because, they are dorfs. And I'm a card carrying selective heightist. Well known for hating gnomes, halflings and dwarves. But I like ratfolk and vegepygmies.

:)

You handled it with aplomb UR.


Having played a lot of Dwarf Fortress lately, I must agree. Dorfs are incredibly stupid!


I'm much the same way. If several people say positive things, and one person says a negative thing, my mind will focus on the negative thing, as though that one person must be correct, and the several others must be wrong.

No. Logical. Basis. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Sometimes, it even helps.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

So, I just got a strongly negative comment in my main thread. I couldn't make much sense of it, but it still hit me hard. I shouldn't respond so emotionally. It's just one comment and it doesn't even say anything useful but it makes me feel worthless.

Damn this depression! It makes me feel things that have no logical basis!


A few more updates.

Law and Order in Zer Terall.

A bit on what an archmage actually is. A party including an archmage might play the game somewhat like Birthright. What separates an archmage from a regular mage is the ability to realmcast, expanding their spell range and area to strategic scales.


So, who is still following my work?


I'll check it out. I have my own experiences with near depression, and I have several family members who have gone off the deep end. Seems to take a lot out everyone. So I'll keep an eye on it. Check out archmage some more tonight. Good luck.


I've been reading as I said, just not much free time to delve into the mechanics much.


Keep writing.


I am peeking from time to time. I hope I will be able to dedicate more time to it next month or another.


Okay. Thanks.


Hurrah! I managed an update. This one is about vampires (and vampires as player characters).

I may add the actual stats for making vampire characters soon.

And there we go! A first draft of the templates for character ghouls and vampires.

Scarab Sages

Bruunwald wrote:

I, too, am a highly creative individual with endless ideas, but who also suffers from depression and also suffers from a lack of energy or motivation to get the ideas down.

If I may recommend a trick I have discovered, which helps me. Don't know if it will help you, but here goes...

I noticed over the years that I tend to want to work on my ideas when I am supposed to be doing something else. In fact, on occasion, when nobody was looking, I would waste lots of time meant for one thing, doing the creative thing.

I've found I can sort of trick myself into working on creative stuff by beginning something else. Something lame and boring, like cleaning the house or organizing supplies, or going out to run a few errands or something. Doesn't cure the depression, of course, but it can get me to WANT to work on stuff, which can result in short spurts of actual productivity.

Hell, yeah.

I've also noticed this in myself, and the corresponding benefit;

By psyching myself up to do something creative, I can find myself finally getting on with those boring jobs I've been putting off.

I just had a week off, thought I'd get down to polishing a Wayfinder submission. Did I? Did I hell. I waterproofed the brickwork on the outside of my house.
WTH? I know if I'd planned to do it, or been nagged about it, it would never have got done.


I'm still alive and still posting, but damn, it's getting harder.


Why?


Mostly due to the lack of interest this last month, probably. Also, I've been more depressed than usual lately.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

My first published novel sold 47 copies, that's fourty-seven.

It has been my experience that if you only write to get feedback that you think will make you feel that your writing is important to somebody else, you should not be writing.

If that day comes, as it did for me, when you realize that you should not be writing, and you cannot stomach that notion, then you should probably stop equating depression to the idea that no one is reading your work.

No one is reading my work, but it doesn't bother me anymore.

Don't be depressed about something that you cannot and probably will not ever understand.

Sometimes, the writing has to be what we want to do, not what we want to be admired for.


I'd contend that there's a difference between writing "to get feedback that you think will make you feel that your writing is important to somebody else" and "wanting to have an indication that you aren't creating in a vacuum."

The first is not necessarily a good thing for one's self-esteem or one's ability to see the worth in the process.

The second is absolutely vital and necessary.

My own writing endeavors have been suffering from a lack of the latter, lately, as well. Pretty much everyone who absolutely promised me feedback (of the constructive criticism variety) has flaked. I have probably 3 regular readers of my serials, and even though my game/world-building blog gets hundreds of views a week, I rarely (if ever) get comments.

I'm not writing to make me feel like other people want to read what I write. I know that somewhere out there, I've got three very happy regular readers. Go team Venture.

But creation in a vacuum is a terrible thing. I could be writing absolute tripe, and if no one's willing to give me constructive feedback, then I will continue to barrel ahead with that tripe full steam ahead. And that's not a good way to proceed for many people.

I think maybe that's what Umbral Reaver was getting at with reference to the "lack of interest." It's something I can completely understand. It isn't a need to have someone come up and say "Wow! This is GREAT!" or even "Wow! This SUCKS!"

It's a desire to know that the creation isn't being flung into the empty void of space. That someone's paying attention.

Hell. Over in my "and sometimes I even write stuff" thread, I have evidence that only Orthos is still paying attention. I should probably just drop that thread and take the hint that my fellow Paizonians don't really give a toss about it. But I still update it. Because maybe someone other than Orthos will come along one day and go "Hey, neat!"

Umbral, don't give up. Keep going. Just because I have been super silent (life, work, more life, more work, and I do apologize for the silence) doesn't mean I haven't been looking in from time to time. And I do like what I see coming from you.

And for the record, Terquem is spot on here:

Terquem wrote:
Sometimes, the writing has to be what we want to do, not what we want to be admired for.

We write because we must. Lest the worlds in our head collapse our sanity under their weight.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Excellent post Jemstone

To show my support for Umbral, and to once again demonstrate that it is easy to write, without being depressed, I am going to begin reposting one of my novels that was originally posted in this thread

My other writings that were left unfinished

and post it (with some edits i have made) to its own thread in the Books forum

AND

I will begin visiting Unbrals work, and making comments as best as I can, but please remember, somewhat in line with the fictional words put into mouth of the character of Earnest Hemmingway in the movie "Midnight in Paris"
” My Opinion is I hate it…If it's bad, I'll hate it because I hate bad writing, and if it's good, I'll be envious and hate all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer."


Really looking forward to seeing your stuff on the boards, Terquem. :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

It's definitely the vacuum thing. My depression is largely due to reasons beyond my control that aren't related to writing.

I am writing a roleplaying system and setting. Feedback lets me know how well my mechanics and fluff resonate with people. Additionally, when people ask questions, it helps me fill in gaps I may have missed.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Well, I'd like to see you not get depressed, for any reason, so work on that! Also, as an FYI, I have posted a few parts of a novel, in the Book forum, and other than one person dotting the thread( who is a regular player in one of my PbP games) I have had no feed back of any kind on those posts. That seems to be the way things go around here. It doesn't mean no one is reading, but there is that, and I am not going to let it bother me.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, it's all good.


Dang, it's hard to keep this up.

Here's what I've done since the last post:

Maps!


hey umbral have you read "guns, germs & steel" by jared diamond? If you're into coming up with things for your world like propogation patterns and reasons for migration over the course of its history, it could be a pretty fascinating read and a good source for framing your ideas


Nope. I may have a look for it.


Oh hey, this thread. Still trying to work on this. I've been putting together a private wiki to help organise and edit my various posts into something more like a campaign setting book. Still, I'm not writing nearly as often as I'd like to. Still afflicted with the infinite sads.


*hugs*


Thanks for the comment. Even as little as that helps. Though, if you have time, poking at the main thread and asking questions helps. If you can point out any flaws or holes in what I've written so far, that's even better! I can be blind to faults in my own work.


I read this article a while back and it had a great description of the downward spiral experienced by many artists.

No depression here but I do experience that horrifying anxiety when looking at a blank page. I can get punk'd out before I even start and distract myself by posting on forums...

And on that I should be starting my drawing exercises. I'll post my 30 minute drawing in an hour (Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen)


My depression is because of medical issues.

51 to 100 of 109 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / General Discussion / Depression and Writing - My Difficulties in Finishing Archmage All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.