It seems every so often my moods shift and I get the urge to give up one hobby in order to spend more time with another. There will be times I go several weeks without touching a video game because I just lose all interest in what is, on the whole, my favorite past-time.

I think this is because video games, while always a core passion, were not always my single, isolated hobby. It’s always strange to think back to life as a child and recall all the different activities I gravitated towards most often. I enjoyed comics and comic strips, I enjoyed reading, and I enjoyed watching television and film as well. Yet it was uncommon for me to watch television or film without also drawing, or switching over to play with toys and action figures at the same time.

Now, this is certainly the sort of behavior children engage in. They will practice a variety of activities, and through that they will develop their strongest skillsets. At least, this is what I believe. So it doesn’t surprise me that, as an adult, I have trouble maintaining a single hobby and will frequently find myself wanting to spread out and try more activities.

For example, last year I promised to continue forth my efforts to put together a comic while simultaneously launching RamblePak 64. Since then the comic has seen very little work, and while I’ve updated RamblePak less frequently I’ve still managed to maintain development on it (in fact, right after I finish this blog I’ll likely be editing the next video). I’ve also managed to really work on my writing through the latter half of 2013 by becoming a writer for GamersWithJobs, and I’ve relaunched and maintained a stable schedule for The RambleCast.

All of this is more than enough to be a single person’s hobby and set of side projects. Unfortunately, I’ve been bitten by the desire to do more than discuss and critique. I want to create again.

I feel like it has been building for the past few weeks, but attending MAGFest seems to have kicked it off in full. Seeing people at their art tables, people conducting panels, watching musicians perform, and attending the Machinae Supremacy concert, the band that acted as muse for my latest comic idea, all seem to have driven in me the desire to create once more.

Now, video games are losing their draw. I’m finding it difficult to work up the energy to select my next title to play, analyze and dissect now that I’ve completed Saint’s Row the Third. I am still playing my 3DS to and from work each day, but my mind is starting to drift. Video games are currently losing their flavor, and my hunger must be sated by the act of actually making something with my own hands.

What does this mean? I don’t know. Sometimes this feeling gets stamped out with ease by my endless pessimism and self-doubt. Sometimes I manage to keep the energy going for a week, two weeks, a month, or perhaps longer. Then sometimes, the fire is gone for good. I worked on GameLandEtc. for a decently long time before finally burning out. I would love to go back to it one day as I really like those characters, but the inspiration is not there. I fear that the longer time passes, the less likely I am to ever go back.

Games writing and criticism will always be there, but I suddenly wish I could return to the life I had when I was younger. Free of the responsibilities of adulthood, to simply step away from the controller and settle myself with a pencil and sketchpad, going to work on my latest idea.

The problem is, I never really finished anything I began as a child. I still have yet to complete anything I’ve started. The only constant has been games criticism.

I’d like to change that. I’d like to take some time to finish something I’ve made, to provide a beginning, middle, and conclusion. Closure. Yet adulthood makes it tough, because I’m always going to be forced to find a way to try and make money so I can continue eating and paying rent. I must have a job, and at the moment, that means doing work that I’ve kind of screwed myself into doing.

So I sit here, with the itch to open up Manga Studio and continue progress on Hero One, but pondering how long the itch will last this time, and how long it’ll be until I get it again. Will there ever be a time where that itch will never go away, and where I can manage to bounce between different hobbies and interests again?

I’d like to hope so.