Before I start my devlog, I want you to check out the Games for Gaza fundraising bundle that is going on right now! They are raising finds for the Medical Aid for Palestinians organization and will be running until November 9th.

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Well, another month has passed and it's getting colder. Thank goodness because I like wearing sweaters more! But updates in this month are admittedly a little funky because I, well, fell into a funk.

So… I had a real bad spell of impostor syndrome and artblock this month. As in I could not find it in myself to draw anything for myself that isn't art assets or figure drawing, and each attempt to do so ended in me essentially crying because, as my brain stated over and over during that time: "what's the fuckin point lmao my stuff isn't good enough"

That just honestly meant I was putting too much pressure on myself to draw, but how do I stop doing that? Especially when seeing how hard everyone else is working on their craft, and how it felt like my best just isn't good enough. Thankfully I have a really good support system of fantastic offline friends and partner-whom-i-love-dearly that helped get me out of this super bad funk and got me to focus on other things besides the pressure of being an artist online. 

As I was trying to recover,  watching some videos have helped too. One was Toniko Panjota's video on creative fulfillment here:

The points he talks about comes from an animation industry point of view, but I still find it resonates to anyone that makes anything and burns out of the thing they love doing. The thing that struck me in this video was about how creativity informs how you problem solve things in your particular craft, and how doing that too many times can lead to exhaustion and burnout. Another is trying to figure out what exactly gives you creative fulfillment, because each person is different and gets fulfillment in different ways and methods to achieve it that do not line up to what gives you fulfillment. Plus, what gives you creative fulfillment can change as you change and grow older and your life becomes different. Perhaps that meant that what gave me fulfillment before isn’t working now because of how much I changed and what my priorities are as an artist has changed as well.

So what I did was write down what motivates me to make things as a visual novel developer. Even though I was trained first and foremost as an illustrator and graphic designer, the reasons why I like being a dev came to me easier than an artist. Perhaps it was irl circumstances that made the reasons why I want to draw harder to come to mind, but I also find that the reasons why I dev, write, code, tell stories is, in the end, the same for me when it comes to drawing. It's just that drawing and designing came with more internal backlash, but even then writing down said backlash was interesting because each negative thing that came to mind was easily refuted with actual, real examples I can bring up. AKA my lived experiences and also comments from the dear people who take the time to do so.  :D

Writing out your reasons why you want to make something and writing down your worries on why you're so hesitant on making it is something I highly recommend, especially if you're someone like me who gets these spells every so often. It's very therapeutic and it's helped me figure out why is it I feel like a "failure" as an artist and reinforce why I like to create art and games.

Another video that helped me think about my situation was Adam Savage's Tested episode on bookbinding here:

Truthfully, a lot of videos on his channel has helped and as someone that grew up on the show Mythbusters, it was fantastic finding his channel and seeing he’s as enthusiastic as ever on making things. The bookbinding one caught my eye because Hello fun fact about me, I love bookbinding and bind my own sketchbooks! Though I haven't done it in a while due to not having space for it atm, but trust me when I say I’ve been itching to bind my current sketchbook (which is essentially half experimental binding method i came up with that needs tweaking because it's currently falling apart, half a pile of papers i happend to draw on) and dig into my giant pile of signatures and bookboards to make some.

What struck me was when he was talking about finding efficiency in making things and how you don't need to be 100% perfect at it. What pulls me to bookbinding as a hobby is seeing how versatile and accessible it is to make one, meaning that you don't need to follow instructions 100%. While I do use guides to remember how to do coptic stitch binding (my favorite method of binding, because I love the look of exposed book spines), I have bound older sketchbooks where I just winged it and it still came out great! In fact, I'm going to have to wing binding my current sketchbook, but I'm not intimidated or scared of doing that.

In the video, Adam states he tried his hand at whip making. At some point while making one, he decided to do away with the instructions he was working with and do something else entirely, later on finding out that what he did was actually a standard method other whip makers use, it just wasn't in the book. Being able to do something like that helps build your confidence because you know to trust yourself. Like you have enough experience to figure out how to solve a problem in your own way and be satisfied with the end result you estimate you're gonna get. And if you don't get that end result, that's fine because now you have more experience in making it, so doing it more will give you more confidence the more you do it.

(Man, I want to make some sketchbooks again...) 

I wanted to share the videos and my experiences in hopes that if you're going through what I just did, it helps alleviate that pressure even a little bit. Needless to say, I'm in a much better mental headspace now and I'm raring to draw! Can't show those yet though, so I'll just update on things I have been doing while dealing with my burnout and what I'll be doing for the upcoming month.

I have been editing a future vn for a while, and I'm currently halfway through it! It's been a while since I looked at the script, as in literal years, so I have to rewrite some scenes as I’m sifting through it. But it's coming along and I can't wait to show you all how depressing it is! :D I’ll probably be working on getting the editing done throughout November in hopes of letting it rest and eventually getting beta readers on it.

If I get done with editing that script this month, I hope to get some writing done in the spirit of NaNoWriMo! It’s not a 60K word novel I’ll be working on, but things I need to finish writing across several projects. I have a document purely for how much I've written in the month, and it's more for me to see how much I was able to get done.

I also managed to get my portfolio site up and running! There are things I need to change and need to add, but between this and the newfound motivation to draw, it's really making me  want to add more stuff to it~ I coded all of it myself without a premade template (plus tons of tutorials on html and css online lol), so I’m really proud of how it came out!

I'm hoping to do some visual novel coding done as well! Alongside wanting to figure out how to disable animated text,  I also want to have an actual endings collected screen in my games. It's mainly because while I supply a text file that has an endings guide in my games with more than 2 endings, I severely underestimated how many people play my games in browser and therefore do not see the guide. I suppose I can add a devlog in the pages themselves (I will do that this month and in the coming days), but I still want to add them in the games themselves since the user may want to stay in the game and just need hints so they don't need to search it on a search engine or hunt down the itch page. That, or if the user downloaded the game before having no internet. That way, players will still be able to complete everything without needing to leave the game.

I’m also hoping to do some work for my Christmas romance villains VN It’s the Most Terrible Time of the Year for the upcoming Winter VN Jam, but jeez I already have a lot on my plate! I love those nerds though and I know I’m gonna be watching Christmas romance movies for the season, so maybe I’ll get something done for them since I know the motivation is guaranteed to be there? Who knows~

And that is all for now! Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. We will see what I'm able to accomplish this November, and hopefully I won't fall into a funk like that again! Hope you all had a Happy Halloween and are having a great day~

          ~Knickknack PJ