There is a well-dressed man scowling inside of my mind. His frigid gaze scans across the works of the past thirty days and his lip curls into a snarl. With the quaking force of a crumbling building his accusations and judgment pins me to the ground. My fingers gouge into the dirt to try and pull free from the writer’s block I now find myself under. The well-dressed man adjusts his cufflinks before berating me further.

He says I got nothing done in April.

The entire month slipped by and still I failed to complete the script to Fire Emblem Warriors. In some ways this is a result of physical ailments seeming to strike one after the other. While I was not rendered perfectly incapable, my mind was compromised. Concentration was a fight, and I constantly found myself pinned or pushed out of the ring.

That still only accounts for a part of the month. Somehow I managed to find the time to update this blog. It may seem that the essays I’ve pushed live are of little consequence, but each has required a minimum of two hours work. I do not simply write a single draft, but comb back through and make necessary modifications. I might even rewrite the essay altogether, as I had with my piece on Pacific Rim: Uprising. I also continue to contribute to GamersWithJobs, even if the work has yet to produce visible fruit.

Of course, I’ve been working this way since before April. I decided on columns like Silver Screenings, Sunday Studies and Game Log so that I might further follow in the footsteps of Shamus Young. His Twenty-Sided Tale blog has specific types of content regulated to specific days of the week, ensuring something every day. I knew I couldn’t achieve that frequency, but hoped to at least have three things to offer each week to encourage readers to return.

I failed to include my full-time job into the equation. The greatest difference between Shamus Young and I is his ability to write full-time. He also does not create video content regularly. I, on the other hand, am frequently juggling too many projects at once.

Inevitably this leads to that well-dressed man inside my mind gripping my heart in a tightly clenched fist until it bleeds feelings of failure. Writing becomes a taller obstacle demanding I not merely leap over but climb above. Even after reaching the top I somehow must safely make my way down. Most times I suffer an unpleasant fall.

This time I’ve knocked his hand away from my heart. I am not a failure, just misguided in my ambitions. Once upon a time I tried to open a Patreon for everything I do. I figured the podcast, video series, and blog entries all combined into enough to be worth supporting. In reality, writing – the most frequent content I could create – was one of the least appreciated things I do. Just as well, as the writing I was producing at the time wasn’t polished enough. It still may not be, though even if it was are there enough reading that would care to contribute?

I do not say this out of depression. I say it as acknowledgement that my greatest following is likely my YouTube channel. Foolishly the channel has always been bottom priority. No wonder other YouTubers find greater success than I do. While I’m futzing around trying to ensure my blog is updated, they’re busy working on scripts and audio and clip cutting.

Prioritizing the blog comes with more significant side effects than how much time is dedicated to writing. If I’m going to update Silver Screenings every week, I need to make sure I have time spent watching a variety of media. It’s not enough to simply watch a film or anime. There needs to be some inspiration driving that post. Otherwise I’d just be pumping out posts like Activision has tried to pump out Call of Duty games.

Speaking of, my free time suddenly finds itself in a flux as I need to also find inspiration to discuss some form of game design for Game Log. When I’m not busy with my day job, continuing my Biblical studies, dragging my abundantly sized torso to the gym, cooking healthier meals to reduce the torso abundancy, or spending time with friends and family, I need to watch film or anime, play games, write something up in my blog, edit the latest Eh! Steve! Podcast (which itself has seen multiple disruptions this month), or finally work on whatever stage of the next video I happen to be on.

It becomes too much. I find myself digging a deeper and deeper hole struggling to find gold. After spending so much time without visible progress, I look up only to realize I’m eighty-feet under and have no way to climb back out.

Typically this is where I curl into a ball at the bottom of that hole and accept my status as feast to the worms of despair. Today, I choose instead to try something new. I… would continue this metaphor if I had any idea what the best way to dig out of an eighty-foot hole would actually be.

I suppose such a feat would be impossible anyway, as all that dirt needs somewhere to go. You can’t realistically keep tossing it out of the hole, after all.

From here on, I will not pressure myself to have more than one blog entry a week. I will still use the separate columns as prompts to encourage new essays, but I will not shackle myself to a schedule. I wish to instead prioritize my videos. In this way, even if I continue my weekend habit of visiting the coffee shop to write for a few hours, I do not spend all of my time worrying and hurrying over that week’s blog content.

Before moving on more specifically to the script itself, I do want to emphasize that one of the reasons I keep this blog going is my satisfaction in writing. It is one of the few arts I’ve been able to practice into adulthood, and unlike my illustrations I’ve actually seen great improvement. I love writing, and I truly want to continue doing it not for popularity but the love of expression.

So, about that script. There is another reason I found myself unable to complete a draft. I became under the impression I did not have much to say after all. I knew the video would be on the shorter side. My observations regarding its design aren’t really deep, nor do I have some incredible thesis regarding it. I was simply surprised by how much I enjoyed it and yearned to let others know why.

This is a perfectly suitable thesis to have! Once again the pressure I felt upon my back was of my own making. It is as if Atlas were holding nothing in his arms, brought groaning down to his knees by the weight of the Earth he convinced himself he held. All I need do is create a video in the same vein as my Splatoon analysis and I’ll be fine. I can move on.

I need to practice more caution when informing of my next project. Of late I have been much more invigorated in my play through of Iconoclasts and what new observations I’ve uncovered. At the same time, I now feel forced to follow a schedule and buckle down rather than follow whims of excitement. This isn’t to say I will never indicate my next project, but to be careful to only do so if I know that’s what I’m fired up for.

Regardless, as of this posting the first draft is complete. I’m going to comb through once more as soon as this is posted, and unless I find myself greatly dissatisfied with the end product I should be able to record and edit the audio over the next few days. As long as I keep a steady pace, it should be released within May while allowing for Iconoclasts to enter pre-production earlier than my usual productive process. With good fortune and a good ethic, you will see the greatest productivity you might have ever seen this year despite a late start.