Therapeutic JournalI miss drawing. Something is keeping me from it. I don't know what. I have a whole bunch of pictures in my head, but I can't seem to form any of them up. I think Moonie use to speak of this, but I haven't had this kind of drawers block before or for so long. It's not that I can't think of anything to draw. I can. I can even picture it... but whenever I sit down to draw these things, something stops me... saps the will to do it form me.
I miss my 360... I can't get people to play the Wii with me, and my PS3 is too often a hassle. I know the Wii's excuse, but you'd think that Sony would have figured out a way to give you notifications of friends, be able to compare Trophies without having to load anything to the internet, and have a more obvious message system. I miss being able to just hit a button and see how many friends I have online and who's playing what.
Lokimun is around a lot, and I'm glad he's here. I am getting to see a whole lot of TV shows and such on DVD that I have again after so long... because I hate watching them alone and now he's always here. I hate doing just about anything alone. I'll even do things I hate if I get to do them with other people. And with Maiden and Crunchy hanging out in the basement almost constantly, I rarely get to see either of them.
I think my faults among myself and my friends have to do with my LARP Game that I've been running for just this side of two years. I am not the Storyteller I set out to be. I initially started my Game because no one else would do it... no one would run a Chronicle... and it occurred to me that I do enjoy a good story and can manage to tell one most of the time... and so if no one else would run a Game, then I would. My point was not to be in charge or to do things differently... it was to run a Game that at worst was average and at best was epic... so that other people could have fun.
I succeeded and I failed in a lot of different ways over these two years. My Game is the longest running of any LARP I've ever been a part of at 56 Games, and the first weekend of November 2009 will start my Third Year. I've managed to keep the story straight and to keep moving forward with it... but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think anyone cares about it. I don't think it's interesting to other people, and I'm not sure how to make it so... so on that level, I have largely failed.
You can't please everyone all of the time, but I still thought I could manage a better average after all this time. It's been in a rut and I've given serious thought to making a plot to end it all. Maybe I will... The disagreements stack up... liberties with the universe, changing of the rules, adding to the rules, allowances of certain types of characters... I seem to have upset someone at each and every turn, and I am running out of ideas of how to deal with it.
I need new blood, but I can't get it. Oh, what I would give to have the input of an AST again as I'm now running things alone... but more enjoyable would be if I could manage to talk someone into taking over the story at some point so that they could bring new ideas into the Chronicle... and that perhaps I could play.
I want to ST because I think I'm good at it and because I don't think anyone else will. If I stop, who runs Game? But is it better to have any Game at all than to have no Game? The Vampire Game here in Greenville is shit, but it's a Cam Game so it just keeps going on and on. Do I want to be that Game? The running gag, the joke... the 'Oh yeah, Tyler's Game' Chronicle? No. I don't. If people aren't having fun, I should stop. It's the logic that got me into this whole mess...
I started being ST for people to have fun... but if people aren't having fun, then I'm just a failure. If people aren't having fun, I should just stop. It's not like I haven't tried to renew interest... I have. But it's been about half a year of people being disinterested in my Game... of my Players talking to each other without including me about all that's wrong and leaving me out of things. I want to know what's wrong so I can fix it, and no one's been telling me.
I did my bi-yearly questionnaire at this past Game. I asked everyone all their problems and they all told me... Now I have a list of what to keep track of and what's expected of me, and I have a goal to aim for to fix everything. Will it matter? No offense to my Players and friends, but I doubt it. I think I've lost everyone's trust in being a good ST... and so even if I can get going in the right direction, I don't think anyone will care. Everyone has done their own thing and gone out of their way to avoid any story I ever lay down before them...
Crunchy says he hates my story and my NPC's, but will in the same breath say he doesn't know what the story is. Lokimun claims to have gone out of his way to interact with my story, but I cannot recall an active effort on his part to see my story. The truth is, in the beginning I more or less forced people to go along with my plot in one form or another, and it worked and they had fun, but a lot of people disliked that. When I freed up the story so they could do what they wanted and still pursue the story, most everyone choose to do their own thing...
I'm just rambling at this point, but I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I want everyone to have fun and I have a plan try and get that in motion... but on the other hand, my Players distrust my choices and spit in my face at every turn. They may not realize it, but I know I currently suck as an ST. They think because I make big choices about Game as an ST that go along with what I think after speaking with them that I'm not listening to them. It's not true. I take in all choices, and then go with my gut... but to them, I am ignoring them.
It's like they hate me.
I can make things up, but I've lost momentum... I've lost my Players. Almost no one shows up to Game, and now that I'm running it alone, so not a lot gets done. My first reason to ST was to make a Chronicle that everyone could play in and enjoy... and I have currently failed. I don't know why they say I'm forcing a plot down their throats but actively say they're working against it. I can't focus anymore. I lost the purpose and I need to find it again.
Here I am in this dark room by myself thinking that I'm alone inside my own mind as I use to be. Part of me might even enjoy crying, and I know that sounds strange to anyone reading this. Not a public cry, just a little time to let it all empty out of me. I take my Chronicle and my Storytelling very seriously... more than almost anything else... and I am failing at it.
I feel worthless in life and worthless to my friends. The "I can't"s are destroying me. I can't draw, I can't ST, I can't figure out why Maiden seems mad all the time (or even if she's mad at me)... Crunchy hates my story and my NPC's and doesn't often talk to me even when we're in the same house... and Lokimun, well... I suppose I resent him dropping being AST so fast, but mostly I'm worried about running him off like I've run everyone else off.
Also, I miss Moonie and Justice and wish they'd come up with Shroud to go to Game or something.
Lucky for me I'm not writing this for anyone but myself, so if you're bored, that's you're own doing. As it is, I don't want to hold all this inside, and speaking about it aloud doesn't seem to be working at all... so here it is. Journal time.
As a side note, I passed 10,000 pageviews sometime recently, so that's nice. I wish I could celebrate it or something.
Otherwise, I'm done.
See you in the Future.
Unhappy
Devious Comments
----ART-----
You're right, I've had artist's block several times, and it sucks. Usually it lasts a day, but the only way to get around it is to waste paper. An artistic spirit can often be encumbered by the reality of what's going on around it, if you take the time and just push out some simple sketches, no matter how bad they look, finish the picture. Then do another, and another. You'll eventually wake up that artistic spirit inside you.
It's easy to get discouraged when drawing, which is my number one cause of heavy artists block, mostly because you can have "hot days" for art in which you draw so much better then the norm. Coming back to art after a hot day can make you think that you're drawing badly which can discourage you from drawing.
Start simple, draw something familiar, or draw something around you. Your first few pictures don't have to be particularly expressive, just complete. I often blow a whole page (or two) on drawing lots of different things in the few styles I have to work with and just filling the page with "Bad art". If you've not seen any of these pages, I may have to show you one.
----LARP----
Over all stories in LARP games can quickly become to concealed in the events of everything that's going on for people to 'care' about them. Expectantly people who miss -any- games, as the one game could've had a nuance that would've lead into more information on the going's on.
Though I, myself, have never run a LARP session, from my experiences in playing one, people mostly care about the interactions between them and their fellow players. The story going on around them mostly being something to offer change so that "interacting with fellow players" doesn't become "Drive out to a parking lot to talk with friends"
Some people will enjoy the story and actively seek it out (Shroud-mun) and other players will seek to make their own stories that don't stray too much from the current goings on (The Hopkins Brothers). Some players seem to be happy with "Lets see what the story teller does with our little cliche today."
What's important is that you continue the game. I didn't stop coming because I thought it was un-fun. I stopped coming because the one game I missed from feeling ill reminded me about what an undertaking LARP was (Both in terms of effort and economic stress).
I can't think of a game that Shroud-mun hasn't come back from LARP without stories (Sans the last game, but off games happen). There's fun in your game, if people come to have fun.
I guess I'll end on this: Justice and I still muse about characters we could make and bring to LARP, if We didn't live half way across the state from the game, we might be more inclined to show up. When we do show up, we usually have to siphon other people's resources for food and drink.
If crunchy, or anyone, doesn't like the story or the current characters involved in the story, then present new characters for them to interact with. Sometimes bending the rules in the name of fun can be what you need to do in order to have fun.
As an idea: Try introducing a new pack that shows up (Not just to show up, give them a reason.... but I'm sure you knew that) and they share Crunchy and everyone in the same mind set's opinion on the current 'administration' of NPCs. They could start going out without letting the sept know and doing things For Gaia, or themselves, or for the sept; but forget letting the sept know because fuck those guys.... and they could bring players along.
Don't make them a different sept, or representatives from another sept, make them joe-shmoes, in the same position and with the same attitude as the people they're intended to be with. This will let you have people go out on missions for the sake of doing missions and not end up with the sept leader having to purchase more rubble filled land scape.
Anyway, that's kinda my 2 cents on things, and as an unemployed broke guy, 2 cents is a lot from me. I know you can over come your hardships and persevere, you've done it before. Wish you luck, Mun.
---Addendum---
Recently I've not been doing a lot of drawing. I have been playing a lot of Dungeon Fighter Online. What I've done so far is draw 2 pictures of my character from DFO just to change things up a bit. If you can't get werewolf to work, why don't you try drawing Shadow Complex art?
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