So....since last month, I've been doing a thing. It's a thing that I thought would be fun and enjoyable and entertaining and all the rest of it. Instead, it's becoming wearing and frustrating and eating up time I want to spend on other things. And it's doing something much worse: it's eating up my ability to actually enjoy what I'm doing.
I'd decided to do something along the lines of a commentated Mass Effect playthrough. Me as a writer, and a fan of the series despite its many issues. And I've reached the point where I'm recording stuff from Mass Effect 3. And now it's hitting me. My mood's been growing worse, my engagement with this project is growing worse, EVERYTHING about this is making me feel worse overall. And it's not just that I'm getting little engagement with this, it's that I'm getting NO engagement. And if I'm doing that, I might as well just enjoy it in private and do stuff I know is sound.
I already created a video for my Author Talks podcast on the series, and I'm not pretty sure I should've just stopped there. I did once do a runthrough for fun of different video games, "AER: Memories of Old" and "Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy", but that was different. I had to read out dialogue, I was more engaged. This time, it's starting to feel like going through the motions. And looking back on episodes, I realise I wasn't actually SAYING anything worth saying. It wasn't very funny, it wasn't very engaging, I wasn't very emotionally invested, and there weren't that many bits and pieces that were actually talking about something. I was just tooting my own horn, which...is something I need to do as a writer. But not like that.
Not that this aborted project hasn't taught me things. It's given me more of an insight into putting videos together which will be a lot of help going forward. I've found out some stuff about sound editing that I need to do.
It feels completely demoralising on one front that this project which I've put about two months of my time and effort into is just...nothing. But on the other hand, I can now enjoy going through the rest of Mass Effect 3 as a game that I have fun with. I probably won't abandon this kind of thing entirely, but it won't be for this series. It'll be for something else that I can just...enjoy doing. And talk about properly. Because that's what I like doing with you, talking or writing about things. Encouraging some kind of dialogue within your mind. And this video series wasn't doing that.
Failure is hard, mostly because we both can be judged from outside, but also because we realise that we had the responsibility to a point of realising the project probably wouldn't work. That doesn't mean don't try new things. If I hadn't tried this out, I wouldn't have known that this isn't the format I'm fitted for. I enjoy piecing things together, creating analysis videos, not walkthroughs.
And if you enjoy analysis and walkthroughs, this is a video I'm still very glad I made. And I hope to be able to create something I'm equally proud of going forward. For now, it's time to chill, destress, reclaim Mass Effect as a guilty pleasure I actually enjoy rather than dread going back to, and refocus on the important things in my life. Stay safe, stay happy, and see you again in the future.
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