Hello beautiful readers and anyone else who happens to stumble on my ramblings! Fall is basically here, and this cryptid is *thriving* in this weather. At least, as much as I can. Here’s your monthly update on my writing.
Unfortunately, I only managed about 1k of words more than last check-in. I’ll be honest, writing was really hard for me last month. Part of it was just depression, part of it was me not taking care of myself properly, and part of it was me not being able to just keep focus on one thing. Since not a lot has developed on the book front, I’d like to talk about the last two more in-depth.
In 2025 the year of our lord, keeping focus on anything is more challenging than ever. I watched a YouTube video recently, titled: “If you wish you felt more creative, watch this.“
I had been wishing that, so I did! The link is there if you want to view it as well, but to try and summarize as best as I can, Jon asserts that wishing we felt more creative (potentially as we did when we were young) isn’t a creativity problem; it’s a boredom problem. We’re not bored anymore. Even if you think that you’re bored sometimes, consider that there are tens of hundreds of options readily available for you to entertain yourself at this very moment. Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, Twitch, your unplayed library on Steam, any app you might download on a whim… The list goes on. That list, however, was much shorter when we were young and developing (for those with in my age bracket, at least). We also weren’t constantly inundated with every single, awful thing happening in the world. I dunno about you, but the state of things has certainly hampered my desire to do… Anything, really.
I followed that video up with one called “how to make doing hard things easier than scrolling youtube“. I don’t think it’s that either video necessarily said anything that we didn’t know, but both said the things I needed to hear in an effective way. I had been asking my therapist how I could better maintain a routine and I don’t know that he could’ve explained to me what the problem is without me figuring it out myself. My dopamine is fucked, and I have to unfuck it.
As of writing this, I’m doing my best to engage with social media as little as possible and avoiding my big vices. Unfortunately, that means limiting my intake of true crime YouTube vids, but we gotta do what we gotta do. The fact of the matter is, those things don’t leave me feeling fulfilled, and I have a whole board of tasks that will. I think the most important takeaway from the second video is that our effort should feel as good as the inevitable reward. Very much, it’s re-framing things to yourself. The cliche saying is that the journey is just as important (if not more important) as the destination. I’ve gotta remember that I love doing things just as much as I love finishing things. It’s probably gonna take me a while to really commit to that, though.
So, what was the second bullet point? Well, I’ve made a Twitch channel!
https://www.twitch.tv/sexylilcryptid
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30PM EST until 9:30PM EST, you can find me either playing horror games or dating sims. I’m sure the schedule will shift and change, but for now, the two nights is what I have time for. I’m really enjoying it. I’m already at Affiliate status and, if you’re interested, I’d love for you to give me a follow as well! My hope is that someday, my channel will do well enough that I can spend more time focusing on writing and less time being a wage slave for someone else.
Also, the battle against payment processors is still ongoing. Please, if you haven’t, give Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, or Stripe a call (or send them a letter) and kindly let them know how you feel about the censorship happening against adult content creators. It’s a slippery slope to mass censorship, especially since they will unfairly label ANY LGBTQIA+ content as ‘adult’. It’s not cool.
And, keep in mind, you don’t have to like or vibe with the things being censored, but when it comes to consenting adults doing what they want with and around each other, or writing fictional content, there’s no reason it should be wiped off the face of the earth. Considering Game of Thrones has… Most of the things currently being censored, I’d say it’s less about protecting anyone/anything and more about silencing creators. But, that’s just my two cents.
Aloyster Crowlay 