Warm holiday greetings, friends. As you may have noticed, I skipped the last two newsletter updates. I thought I’d done one for October but as I can now see, I started it and never finished.
Without getting too deep into it, a lot happened over the last couple of months, and it’s basically just good things. Challenging things, but good things. I’ll talk more about that after the word count update.
I’m actually super pleased to see I’ve done 20k words since the last update. I’d thought the update would be significantly less, because it’s felt like the time I’ve spent writing has been negligible compared to everything else. I mean that without malice towards myself. I’ve had to work to recognize what was unneeded at this point in my life and what would actually spark joy for me to work on. While writing is still a mainstay, it’s had to come third to my other projects, because the other projects bring in a more regular flow of money. I hope that, eventually, those projects will be more streamlined so I can spend more time focusing on writing, but for now, I’m glad I have the mental spoons to do everything at the same time, I just had to stop working myself like a dog while doing them.
One of the other things I work on regularly is my Twitch stream, which you can find at https://www.twitch.tv/sexylilcryptid. If you want something to convince you before you check out a stream, here’s the channel trailer.
You can catch me streaming Tuesday-Thursday starting at 6:30PM EST until around 9:30PM EST. We have different themes every day so if Terror Tuesday (horror games) isn’t your thing, we’ll be doing something random for Whatever Wednesday and dating sims on Heartthrob Thursday. I really enjoy entertaining people (clearly), so having the channel grow as it has in the few short months that I’ve been doing it has meant a lot to me. There may be a time when I expand to other platforms for more smutty games and themes (such as fanfiction reading), but for now, I’m content with my workload.
On the topic of workload, we’ll get back to what I was talking about previously. Thanks to therapy and working on myself, I’ve had revelations and realizations about how I’ve treated myself before, and how I need to interact with myself now for the sake of my sanity. I recently had a mental health assessment and was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). It’s explained a lot about previous trends in my behavior and has prompted me to pay attention to how I talk to myself. I’ve also figured out a better routine, which is mostly waking up, journaling, and then deciding what kind of workload I think I can handle that day. Obviously none of this fixes my ongoing struggles, but it makes them so much more manageable. I did not realize how sacred and helpful writing in a journal every day could be. Sometimes I write a few words, sometimes I write 5 or 6 paragraphs like I did this morning. I had dismissed the idea many times, thinking, “It’s not like anything worth writing about happened today.” and, “Well there’s no point if no one else is going to see it.”
For years of my life, probably since I was in my teens, I’d secretly held the grindset mindset as some sort of doctrine. If I couldn’t monetize it, why would I do it? Even recognizing how unhealthy a capitalist point-of-view is, I somehow didn’t realize it’s exactly what I was doing, and I was torturing myself with it. I couldn’t enjoy a hobby because as soon as I started, there was pressure to turn that money spent into money earned. I wouldn’t even read/listen to a book if it didn’t have something ‘valuable’ to teach me. I completely missed the point of living, and I was miserable because of that.
So now, I pay attention to that. I have my things that make money, and I have the things I do just for myself. I’d say if you fall victim to similar thoughts, consider one thing you can do for yourself. Just for you. You don’t have to talk about it to anyone, and depending on what it is, maybe you shouldn’t. It’s not often, but I’ve had things ruined for me because when I talked about it to someone else, they tell me how I’m doing it wrong; not out of spite, but just out of a perceived need to correct me. So, as long as you don’t risk hurting yourself by ‘doing it wrong’, it’s fine to play, and have it be awkward. If it’s just for you, and you’re getting enjoyment out of it, then hell yeah. At least, that’s what this cryptid thinks.
With a better head on my shoulders, I’ll do my best to *actually* update this monthly. I’ll hopefully see you in Twitch chat, and if not, I’ll see you in January!
Aloyster Crowlay 