The following was posted in the BF Discord server about 2 weeks ago. I’ve finally decided to share it here.
I miss this project. I do. I was so hyped for it, I had so many ideas, and yet it’s just been left sitting here gathering dust for months.
This is entirely my own fault.
I’m not a project manager. Especially when other people are involved. I can barely keep track of everything I need for personal projects. How am I supposed to keep track of other people who are doing their parts too?
I didn’t. And that’s where things fell apart.
This is not a project I want to do by myself. Honestly, I feel like it’s not a project I can do by myself. Not in any semblance of consistency. Not the way I’m doing it. Not in a way that wouldn’t burn me out 50 times over, if I even lasted long enough to get to that point.
I want to write this. But there are obstacles not just in my way, but actively pushing me away from doing so.
First, as I’ve said before, summarizing the events of the canon episodes is a vital part of the way I’m doing this. It’s honestly half the work, but it’s something I find incredible tedious. I’m capable of it, absolutely, but it doubles the amount of time I spend working on the project. If I could get help on this, it would speed things up tremendously, and it would be a lot of stress off my shoulders. (Since posting this in the server, I have gotten an offer to help from someone.)
Second, and this is something I’ve been debating for quite some time in my hiatus, I’m no longer satisfied with the direction I was taking a few things. It’s absolutely possible to fix this, but it would mean reworking every single episode I’ve put out so far. I don’t think it would be incredibly difficult once I figure out what I want to put in its place, but figuring that out is definitely going to be tricky. And…until I do, I can’t write anything else for this. That’s just the truth. I wouldn’t mind doing it. Not to make something I love. I’m actively going to be thinking about this from now on, because I want to come back to this. But I can’t unless I feel like I can actually get the project done. And that brings me to my third point:
I need a consistent source of help. If nothing else, I need it for the episode summaries. This isn’t a jab at the people who’ve helped me previously; I’m horrific at communicating and pushing any sort of deadline. But I also hardly ever got word from some people who said they would help. While some of that can be put on me for not reaching out, and some of it can be attributed to people’s lives being busy, I was told that I would have help, and I didn’t get it. This wasn’t everyone, and I’m certainly not naming names, but it’s how I feel. No one person has all the blame.
My fourth obstacle is my own notes. The disastrous mess that they are is something that needs completely redone. I won’t be able to get anywhere without cleaning them up, and I am not looking forward to that. With my notes as they are, I have no idea what’s meant to be going on, and no idea if I want to keep every concept. As I said above, I know there’s one thing I want to remove, but otherwise, I…don’t know what I’m looking at.
In general, there is a lot going on in my own life, and I cannot at this moment commit to returning to this project. But I am thinking about it. I will be cleaning up what I have to figure out where I am in everything. That much, I can do right now. But I don’t know when this will come back. And that upsets me. But first and foremost, I have to take care of myself. I have to put together my life before I can go back to putting together these episodes.
I’m sorry for the long absence, and I hope there won’t be another one like this. But I don’t know right now.
