If you don't follow me on Cohost you may not know that I've been trying out a writing experiment called The Velvet Room.
This experiment began when I pondered whether I should turn my blog into a digital garden. I recommend reading that real quick before moving on.
I would argue the Velvet Room has been a resounding success for me as a creative person and for my mental health, but it still leaves me feeling mixed and weird and I'm gonna try and parse that out now.
As I mentioned in the link above, I find that I've gotten way too hard on myself when it comes to my performance as a creator. I am once again constantly comparing my output and quality to others, and while that's something I've always struggled with in ebbs and flows, it is doing more damage than ever to me right now. This sucks, because I like making things, but it's becoming so stressful that creating stuff just gave me an ulcer rather than enjoyment, and that sucks.
On top of this, I have been blogging in some format forever now, but I don't care for it as much anymore. I love writing, but I hate writing "polished pieces," especially because I don't consider myself a professional anyway. I am beginning to feel like a chronological timeline of stuff that I've written is kind of trash, and doesn't do enough service to the full extent of who I am as a person, as well as the fact that my thoughts and feelings and interests in things are constantly changing.
So with all that said: I do think I'll be moving the bulk of my creative effort to The Velvet Room from now on. It might seem like I'm ending something but I don't feel like I am - not really. I'm just paradigm-shifting so that I can stretch my limbs and feel a little freer.
And I have - I've felt like I've gotten to write however I want without the pressure of keeping a pristine blog in order, and written posts that are far from what you'd consider a traditional "blog post" but that I love anyways. From my ongoing 29 Days of Horror Movies to my Tentative Thoughts on the Silent Hope Cast, I've gotten to do all sorts of interesting writing (well, interesting to me) in the past week, and have pretty much quadrupled my output.
That said, I know that some, if not most people, are uninterested in keeping up with such a rapidly changing world of posts. This is the part that I'm thinking about most, and will hopefully have an update on soon. I'm considering the following:
- Make an RSS feed of the Velvet Room that people can follow
- Creating some kind of monthly newsletter on the big stuff I end up creating/writing about
I'm mulling it all over, and like I said, I'll have a more concrete plan relatively soon. I also want to keep the Cafe domain as it's neat, so I'm considering what to do with that as well.
Sorry if this all comes off as nebulous. It is. All I'll say for now is: thank you so fucking much for putting up with me. Whether you've known me for a day or ten years, you've probably come to realize that I'm an unsatisfied, fluctuating, brain-addled mess. And the fact that you do know that, and still support the things that I do, means the world to me. I'll do my best to be worthy of that sort of support.
That's all for now. Thanks again.