Burnout
So my hiatus is going to last a bit longer than I anticipated…
I’m burnt out.
This happens. Nowadays, with alarming regularity.
I’ve been through several instances of burnout, but this is the largest and longest for quite some time. It started nearly a year ago, last November, and in the process of my recovery I started writing Fallen Star and The Winter Spirit. I started my Bluesky account and this blog, and for a minute things felt pretty positive!
And then I went back to work.
Suffice to say, working full-time and trying to balance RPGs, writing, and looking for a better job around it was not working. I thought I was just in a funk over the oppressive summer heat, and slow to shake off my Seasonal Affective Disorder through a weirdly-cold spring, but the longer it went on the more I wondered if I’d ever really recovered from that first big burnout late last year. And at this point I’m pretty certain I haven’t.
I’ve been in full retreat. I stopped running or playing RPGs, stepped back from social media, disappeared into distraction. YouTube, podcasts, mobile games. I didn’t read for two months.
But slowly, slowly, I return to myself…
I’ve started reading again. Light topics: a retrospective on the Occupy movement; a scientific simulation of modern society from the ‘70s which sees the global population collapse sometime within the next fifty years…
You know. Holiday reading.
Reading was the easiest of my hobbies to re-learn. And I am having to relearn these things. All of my knowledge and interest felt lost for a long time over the spring and summer, and trying to claw my way back to the starting line is a long and uneven road.
Writing is… coming back. Very slowly. I don’t think I’ll be updating stories until at least January, and that’s a cautiously-optimistic estimate.
RPGs are… I dunno. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I really, really hate Dungeons & Dragons for what it’s turning the hobby into, and I’m struggling to bridge the gap to actually running the RPGs I want to play because that takes so much effort. I’m not a natural GM – I struggle to keep a game going, no matter how much energy I bring to the table, and the energy I can bring right now is… not much.
So I don’t know when I’ll be back to RPGs, if ever. It sucks to say it, especially because I am the kind of GM who wants to run anything but D&D, and we are rare and far-flung treasures in this day and age. But it’s a level of social interaction and engagement that I don’t know if I can bring to the table anymore.
This is the longest thing I’ve written in a while, and I don’t think I’m going to write much in the next week. I’m still dealing with a lot of blocks – some mental, some emotional, some physical – and until I get my own headspace (and possibly bodyspace) sorted, I’m gonna be low-key for a while. Trying to cram too much into one week will only result in another episode all the sooner.
So for me, rest is the key. You won’t be seeing much on here for the rest of the year. I hope you enjoy what there is thus far, though, and if you like it, keep a candle lit for me.
-Moth ཐི༏ཋྀ