000Fracture
there's a throwaway line on my homepage at the moment
"banned from writing about right now"
I dunno if this post is gonna break that rule or not? but like, I'm sticking to it spiritually, so whatever.
<3
- - - - -
Being creative is mostly an endless well of being vaguely in pain, I think.1
as the footnote implies, this isn't always a bad thing? but it does piss me off a bit.
I'm sitting here tonight after wasting* my day playing games. I did this mostly to avoid feeling things (we're not getting into that rn, sorry). i deliberately chose the most mindless options I could, and also Against The Storm cause its good.
and yet. and yet. I have been made to feel things.
By motherfucking skyrim.
and I wanna make games that make people feel things.
- - - - -
So, I've got this nifty little webtool called inklewriter open. I stared at the page for a bit, and then got distracted by a discord message, and then decided to write this post about how I feel creatively stifled by my own brain. instead of, doing the thing.
i could just do the thing. and yet. anyway, tangent time-
about... 4 months ago, according to the 'last edited' tag on this board, I made a game with a brand-new friend. It was for a game jam, the theme was 'fracture', and i decided to make a lil narrative game because I'm a freak.
at some point I turned to that brand new friend sitting next to me, and asked if she knew anything about narrative writing. if she wanted to help out, maybe?
I still hold that this is the best damn decision I made all year, for a lot of reasons. No, really. I'm being genuine as fuck right now. Making that game was one of the best experiences I've had in the last couple years. it feels so good to be creative with your friends, y'know?
I don't think I'll ever forget standing in front of a crowd of people with her one week later, bantering back and forth as we presented our work to a room of people, many of whom were professionals who had been doing this for years themselves.
I don't think I'll ever forget the joy of receiving our modest round of applause at the end of it, knowing that it was so much better because of accomplishing something together. Seeing you light up, as people approached you to talk about it afterwards.
We wanted to do it again. We talked about taking it further, fleshing the game out properly, writing all the other endings, making something of it together.
A couple weeks later you started working full time, and... well, you know how it is.
But I still quietly hold hope that we'll do that again one day.
(huh. somewhere in there I swapped to second-person. whoops~)
more recently, another friend asked me what it was like to work with you on a project like that.
I always get caught up in nuance, so my response was a bit fucking long-winded. But I said some of what I just wrote - it was really fucking fun, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
She asked if I thought you'd be good at it, in the long run.
I said "If you gave me any random 20 people that we know, and asked me which of them I thought had the best shot at succeeding, creating something worthwhile, making it in this industry? Yeah, I'd pick her. No doubts."
You'll call me crazy, but I meant it.
- - - - -
I really like music.
this is ironic, cause theres also a lot of music that I really don't like. sometimes I even feel bad about that, but... I think that if I liked all media equally, it'd be a pretty uninteresting world. And I'd probably be a pretty uninteresting person.
tonight, one of my housemates asked me if I played any instruments.
I froze for a moment, and then gave some halfhearted response along the lines of, "uhhh... playing might be a strong word, but I know a little about electric bass, and piano, and now drums?"
I felt like the biggest liar in the world for that. I know precisely enough to be aware that I'm still useless at all three of them.
But I desperately want to change that, and I hope that at least counts for something.
It'd be nice if I could apply my own standards to myself, I think. I watched a couple of my friends playing recently, and while as far as I could tell they missed as many notes as they actually hit at times, I still found it gorgeous.
I'd love to say that the sections where they didn't make any mistakes were even more incredible, but I don't feel that way. It's impressive, and I'll celebrate it with them, sure. but its not about being perfect. if anything, it's about being imperfect.
I just hope that one day someone will see me fumble my way through a song and think the same thing of me, y'know? cause I'm not sure I'll be able to give myself that grace.
I don't know what stops me from... walking out there, picking up my bass or sitting down at the keyboard2, and just doing stupid things until I get used to the shape of them in my hands again. It should be so easy.
and yet.
about a week ago I was sitting downstairs, reading I think, when I heard someone playing guitar upstairs.
it wasn't anything notable. just one of my housemates listening to pieces of a song, to transcribe it. only ever a few seconds of actual playing at a time. often the same sections repeated a little imprecisely over and over.
and... yeah. it was beautiful.
I sat on the floor, trying and failing to be unobtrusive, and just listened for as long as I felt I could get away with. Just for the sake of being in the presence of my friends being creative.
I wanna be one of them so badly. I know I need to do something to make that happen. I don't know if I can, but I wanna find out.
- - - - -
its not actually that difficult to create something meaningful.
To make something memorable is different. but I don't think I'm out here to be remembered. if I can make someone feel something, even just for a few seconds while the moment lasts... I think thats enough.
all it takes for me is my friend playing music, or seeing the shape of their game coming together, or a pretty line in a blog post. and I find myself feeling things. why do you think I'm writing this?
it's 1:34am. I'm gonna go make coffee, and steal an icecream from the freezer upstairs
and then, if we're really lucky. maybe I go write something else.
(Next morning update: I did not write something else lol I went and played spaceship game until 4am. but I did think about writing a lot. it's something).