The Two Faces of Janus
I debated whether to address this or proceed with my post as usual, but here goes: I've enjoyed the back-and-forth we have here in Bearblog, and for the most part I find people to be generally polite. There seems to be a kerfuffle on Trending as of late, so I just want to take a moment here to remind anyone who might happen to read this: you can always choose not to respond or read a response.
Sometimes we write just to vent, and we say extremely generalized, unfair statements we know are unfair. If that's what you do, fine. However, since a blog is public, someone's bound to take problem with that. A remedy is to just hide just-for-me vent writings from the Discovery tab (use attribute make_discoverable: false) or, barring that, to accept that we may have said some unwise things and leave it at that (or respond when your head has cooled down). Response posts are best not taken personally.
That's the best part of not having a comment section, I think. That you can choose to engage with a response on your own terms. Or not at all.
A whirlwind of January.
I met a lot of people, hosted a lot of people, and generally had a good time. The exhaustion took hold almost immediately though. Once the last guest went out of the door, Cinderella time was over and we were left with the sullen reality of back-to-work nonsense.
My new team put me into a lot of meetings, so I would have to rearrange my availability to side projects. Prognosis is getting grimmer with every Town Hall invite, I'll be glad when the whole thing is over. I don't think I can extend beyond this year. They keep stripping us of our perks while changing the game mid-contract, knowing that most of us are too tired and too desperate to just resign. Or maybe this is their way to push a "voluntary" resignation.
So fine, point taken, I'm being given all the signs to quit. Now the question is what will I do if I quit? To my dismay, I keep encountering small things nudging me into maybe giving creative works a try. As a living. I don't know how to feel about it other than the horror that one year has once again passed and I'm getting nowhere.
I'm still struggling to finish the Universe Beyond essay I began since last April. Final Fantasy crashed the Dragons of Tarkir preview season, and it only got worse since then. TMNT's unwanted appearance in otherwise brilliant Lorwyn Eclipsed's prerelease was much maligned and much covered, but nothing pissed me off harder than the random spoiler for Marvel Heroes and Strixhaven not even a week after Lorwyn release, coming right after WotC issued an apology that they would make it up and let Lorwyn has all the attention it deserved.
It's not all doom and gloom. I'm blessed with people I like spending time with and a generally healthy environment to live in. I haven't fully recovered from whatever I contracted in December, but all that's left is the coughing (which from previous experience would persist for a while).
I tried, and failed, to get more writings done before the end of the month. I could feel words trapped in my fogged brain, pushing to get out, followed by the deflated feeling of knowing that I would have to let this slide by lest I got consumed by frustration.
At the very least, I managed to read some novels I'd been meaning to get around. I don't know what has gotten me this long to read another Alix E. Harrow's work, because I've been liking every single one so far.
If I can adjust myself to the pace and workload of my new team ASAP, I may be able to get a project going in February. Not gonna do a jam a month like I did last year, but I would like to at least finish a couple projects this year too.
Since I have revived my old stationeries, I've been thinking on trying my hands on good ol' zines again. Thanks all the bearblog zinesters, please keep showing us your zines!
Praying for Ten Thousand Doors.