Tag Archives: Blogging

I Used to Like Blogging

I did. I really did. It was a creative outlet, it was a chance to connect with people over a medium I felt moderately talented at; it was a way to share my thoughts into the void, and sometimes get a phenomenal response out of it. There was a point where I was posting 3-4 times a week, or more. I was featured on WordPress’ front page – twice!

I don’t really know why I stopped. It wasn’t all of a sudden, either; it kind of just petered out, slowing to a post a week, then a post a month, then maybe two or three in a year. Part of it is my bipolar, I’m sure; when I’m severely depressed, I really just don’t feel like doing anything. But part of it is, I suspect, a severe lack of self-discipline.

You see, it’s not like I don’t create anymore. In the past years I’ve written books, songs, albums … I’m currently working on a classical requiem, for no other reason than I want to. All of this takes energy, effort, and time, but there are also long periods of time where I just don’t do anything. I don’t create. Yesterday, I got home from work at 8 PM, ate dinner by 9 PM … and then just went to bed. No work, no creativity; just sleep.

I do like sleep.

But this lack of discipline, I suspect, is chronic in my life. It takes me forever to achieve anything. In the time I write one book, others write four or five. In the time it takes to get a promotion at work, others are three or four levels ahead of me. I think the biggest issue with my life is that I give in to complacency: an idea that what I have is enough, and that working towards more is not worth the effort.

But I’m also getting older, and I have to recognize that half my life is behind me. There are still things I want to accomplish, and I don’t have forever to do so. I want to finish The Redemption of Erâth. I want to write a symphony. I want to see it performed by a real orchestra. So many things, so little time.

But it wouldn’t be so little time, if I had a little more discipline.

So here’s my attempt. My attempt at discipline. I will try – try, mind you – to write a post once a week at a minimum, for the rest of the year. I will post it on Monday each week, no matter what. No excuses, no delays. Today is number one. It doesn’t matter what the posts are about; I don’t care if they’re deep, profound, or totally banal and boring. And NO repeats – this doesn’t count if I post previously-written material. The goal here is to actually just write.

And who knows? Maybe 2023 will be the year my blog takes off again. I mean, probably not, but you never know.

So here’s to 48 more posts. This is number one.

Ten Years in the Making

It occurred to me, as I sat here trying desperately to think of something – anything – relevant to say, that I started blogging here on WordPress almost exactly ten years ago – October 5, 2011 was my first post. And as I thought about that, I thought that really, that’s a pretty long time.

In some ways, a lot has happened. I’ve written and published three (and a half) books in The Redemption of Erâth series (with more to go, if I ever get there) and two stand-alone YA books under my real name; I’ve published over nine hundred individual posts here on Satis Writes; I’ve recorded five albums of music (that will likely never see the light of day). My son, who was seven when I started writing fantasy for him, will be going to college next year.

But in other ways, not much has changed. I’m still depressed. I still struggle to do things that others find easy. I still don’t know how to do my taxes. I’m still me, and me hasn’t changed much in ten years. I’m not famous; I don’t have an agent; I’ve never successfully convinced anyone to represent me or my writing. I do it all myself, and get it out to no one.

WordPress has been kind to me; it’s been a community that helped me through difficult times, and gained me readership, fans and friends. I don’t spend nearly as much time here as I used to, and it shows in my likes, readership stats and views. But I will keep writing, because I kind of don’t know what else to do. Every time I commit to writing more, or again, I fall out of it just as readily. Every time I say things will be different … they never are.

Recently I’ve fallen into an exceptionally deep depression that I’m really struggling to rouse myself out of. I posted on Monday about loneliness and validation, and … haha, got no likes. It doesn’t help.

I realize it’s a journey, of course, and that it comes with its ups and downs. I’ve had some great times over the years – for example, some of my first book launches (virtual, of course) were exciting, and I got the opportunity to connect with and get to know lots of different authors, readers and fans of fantasy and writing in general. There’ve been some absolutely awful times, like when I found myself in my car in the woods of Pennsylvania, wondering what the easiest way to die would be.

I’ve even been featured on WordPress’ front page twice, for articles on raising children and mental health. That was a long time ago, but I remember it fondly, as being part of a supportive, caring community.

In the end, of course, whatever comes is what will come; whether it be fame, fortune, recognition, anonymity, misery, or death. I can’t control the future, anymore than I can change the past. But I can at least recognize the steps that it’s taken to get me here, and the fact that, despite sometimes months of absence at a time, I continue to return to WordPress, continue to write, and continue to try and reach out to the world at large.

So here’s to celebrating ten years of blogging; and who knows – perhaps to ten years more.

We shall see.

The Boring Side of Mental Stability

I have to admit, I’ve been on a good streak lately. No major ups or downs, staying (mostly) on my meds, and sleeping well at night, I’ve managed to get my second YA book published (released a few weeks ago), and I’m doing well at work and at home. No drama, no fights, no arguments – except maybe about those seedlings I promised to report and haven’t got around to you – life is good. I feel stable and well-adjusted, and even interviewing for a new position at work isn’t getting me overly stressed.

I also feel incredibly boring.

Not bored (although that’s a side-effect) – boring. I feel like I have nothing exciting about me to talk about, write about, blog about, or otherwise share with the world. Years ago when I started this blog, I was wildly unmedicated, and whilst it was incredibly unhealthy for me mentally – for my relationships as well – it gave me plenty of fodder for writing. It led to The Redemption of Erâth, in the sense that I wanted to write an allegorical tale about mental illness and depression, and it let to hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts, some of which garnered a fair amount of attention (one on mental illness was featured on WordPress’s front page).

But now, I just can’t feeling like day after day comes and goes without drama or excitement. I wake up, drink my coffee, go to work, come home, eat my peas, and settle into a routine that is far more midlife than crisis.

I don’t even find myself having particularly strong opinions on things that I otherwise would have had plenty to say about – mental health, racism, gun violence, or the blandness of most pistachio ice cream. It’s all just a blur of uninteresting blah, the world spinning rapidly around me while I just watch, idly interested but without significant input.

Of course, a lot has changed in the past almost-ten years since I started writing about things. Instead of dreaming about writing, I went and actually wrote three fantasy novels and two YA books, got them published, got them into readers’ hands, and learned from the process about what people like to read, and what they don’t. I’ve changed, too; I’m stably medicated, and despite dropping off from time to time (periods where I become more … interesting, at least), I haven’t felt like I’ve had a significant wagon-fall in almost eight months, if not longer.

The funny thing is that it leads to me feeling very dispassionate about life, even to the point of sometimes – sometimes – wishing I was a little less stable, and a little more crazy. It’s not that I necessarily enjoy feeling depressed and miserable, or in the throes of a manic fugue of whirlwind creativity, but at the very least it makes the days pass quicker, and gives me fuel for writing. I mean, look at this blog – my last post was almost a month ago, and the one before that was even longer ago. I used to write 2-3 posts a week!

And I want to continue being creative, and writing, and thinking of things to do; I really do. But I’m not willing to sacrifice my mental health and stability for it, nor my relationships at home and at work. A couple years ago I was calling out of work weekly because of the severity of my depression; now I look forward to being at work and the challenges each day brings. When I’m off my meds, I turn into a rage-monster, constantly fighting and arguing with my wife over the most trivial of things; now I feel like we’re actually able to get along like, well, you know – a married couple.

It’s frustrating, because I typically see myself as an inherently creative individual. But with no inspiration from strong feelings about things, I find myself with very little to create. My first YA novel about depression and self-harm was largely fueled by my own teenage years and the life I lived into my early twenties; my second, largely based on my love for music. The Redemption of Erâth, as I mentioned above, was all about describing depression in a fantastical setting. Now, I just feel like I’m … running out of creative juices.

So while I come here to WordPress from time to time with all the intention of keeping up with this blog, more often than not I find I just … don’t have anything to say. Even here, we have an 800-word post about how I can’t think of anything to write! I feel bad for seemingly abandoning the world I created, and I don’t really think of it as such, but if I’m absent more frequently these days, know it’s because I’m doing well, rather than the opposite.

So here’s to many more years of blogging, whether it’s every day, every week, or a couple times a year; fear not, for I will always return.