"Amos vs. Everything" is an ongoing piece of science-fantasy fiction hosted on Neocities. This is an update feed blog. Forward questions and comments to @fishgloom
Hi. So entry 003.3 was supposed to come on September 10th. It would have been only the 5th entry since I launched AvE in early April of this year.
I think an apology would ring pretty hollow, and so would a promise to do better. All I can say is that I didnāt forget, or find myself out of time to write. Just the opposite, to be honest. Iāve never had more time or mental energy to spend on writing. So thereās no good reason for it to be such a battle.
Mostly Iām just here to announce that AvE is not cancelled, yet, but this has been a dismal start, and itās now moving fully into aĀ āitās posted when/if itās doneā type schedule until probably January of 2021 at least. (So basically a half-assed hiatus.) Or until I can beat some discipline into myself, whatever comes first. Also, Iām probably going to cancel my comment service for now. I donāt update frequently enough to justify paying for it.
More in-depth discussion of the problem under the cut. Open at your own discretion.
My brain has recently moved fromĀ āyou must write perfectlyā to the even more perniciousĀ āyou donāt deserve to write at allā, and I am having intense difficulty outrunning that. Maybe someday I can scrape along to a point where I can weaponize the sunk-cost fallacy to keep writing, but I have a feeling my brain would keep moving the goalposts. I think Iāve mentioned before that Iām carrying something that absolutely does not want this story or any of my others to exist. Sometimes it feels like it canāt even be me, but I know it is me and I donāt even know why part of me is like that. It was a little easier when I was still in school, and I was suicidal over my schoolwork instead of my personal work. But now I am graduated and in lockdown for almost 200 days now and Iāve never had more time to write. So my writing is all my self destruct program has to focus on. So it goes after that. Iām not yet back in a place where Iām making a plan to dispose of myself, so it settles for try itās damnedest to destroy AvE, and everything else Iām trying to do. Because for whatever reason, Iām sharing my brain with somethin that will not stop until everything about me is rubbed out of existence, and if it canāt reach my actual life right now, then itās going to keep going after my works, my wants, my relationships, until nothing else is left. Worst part is, itās true that the stories would not be a huge loss to anybody except me. I thought doing them for me alone would be enough, but I guess it isnāt.
Iām not asking for support or understanding given I am in such a privileged position this year. You donāt have to believe me or care when I say that AvE isnāt dead. But please believe that what I just said here is true, and this is the reason it isnāt appearing.
TLDR: I am dealing with what I recognize is pre-suicidal behavior, and not exactly winning, but I have no current plans, and Iām in therapy so hopefully that helps, eventually.
I wanted to have an upload schedule of once every 10 days. Maybe even once a week, someday. But thatās just not happening right now, and Iām sorry, mental health stuff endlessly kicking me around is making consistency or even gathering a backlog impossible. Work is continuing on AvE, at a snailās pace, against all evidence. I hope to start uploading again later this month.
You might ask why Iām attempting this now instead of later, when I amĀ ārecoveredā-- well, I have no expectation of that happening, and I think I should tell this now anyway because Iām guaranteed to have a shinier, better realized idea later on. Itās my philosophy that you shouldnāt save your ideas forĀ āwhen you are goodā.
Comments are now enabled on AvE, powered by Commento which seems simple and non-shady (even if the comment box is weirdly huge, but hey, worth it for no ads). No sign-in required; anonymous commenting is turned on (I have to moderate those ones myself, though). Let me know at my main blog fishgloom or in the comments of this post if you have any issues.
āAmos vs. Everythingā will return on May 30th. After that, we hope to update more frequently starting on June 10th.
I also want to ask: how important is the ability to comment directly on updates, to you? As nice as it would be, embedding a comment box also means hosting ads on my neocities site, so I hesitate to do it.
me: good grief, weāre actually launching this crazy thing! But how are we going to explain why you are talking at the front of a work thatās supposed to be in third person?
