Turning 40

I turned 40 back in November!

Which means that I'm supposed to panic or be introspective or something. Honestly, the number doesn't bug me that much, but I'm always looking for an excuse to be introspective, so for a couple of weeks in November, I was. I spent a lot of time journaling and thinking about my creative trajectory: about what I had accomplished so far and what I wanted to do next.

And most importantly - why.

I should also mention that I'm writing this while I'm recovering from my ACL surgery - the one I tore back in July. That injury was...well, not really a "wake up" call, but a (not so gentle) reminder that my body is mortal and I need to start taking better care of it. So one of my big things is the concentration on health, mobility, strength, and diet - making it a much higher priority than I've ever had it in my life. This is probably my last best decade to get that in order before the real decline begins.

Anyway, there were a lot of other things I thought about and wrote about, but the one I want to share is the analysis of Silhouette Zero.

By every measure, Sil Zero has been the most successful thing I've ever done, creatively. Sure, people like and have been touched by the novels I've written. Yes, I had a small music career. But Sil Zero has had the broadest reach, made the most money, and has created a small but pretty awesome community around it. It's also the thing I've done the longest and most consistently.

And yet, it's probably the thing I cared about the least.

Let me clarify that.

In my other endeavors, writing in particular, I have put a lot of pressure on myself to be "great." But I never did that with Sil Zero. It was just...having fun with Matt, and then sharing it with everyone else.

And yet, it was the most successful thing. All of the stress of trying to be great hasn't amounted to anything great.

So that has become my motto for creativity moving forward - have fun, share fun.

I'm just going to do the things I want to do and enjoy doing, and then do them as best I can. Then I'll publish them. Or record them. Or upload them. And that's that.

Maybe it'll be under my name. Maybe a pen name. It doesn't really matter. Because at this phase of the game, trying for money hasn't worked and trying for greatness hasn't worked - so I might as well just have fun with it. A lot of what I've worked on recently hasn't been very fun to do.

Here's some stuff I want to do:

• Make a video game. Mostly just to say that I've done it.

• Write a solo RPG I thought of. I wrote a bunch of it down yesterday, actually.

• Write a novel that is absolutely nothing like anything I've ever done and is way out of my comfort zone. I already started.

• Maybe finish a novel that only one other person in the whole world would actually enjoy because it is so specific.

• Finish up the Persona 5 Fan Fiction. Those people have been waiting a while…

And maybe I'll do them and maybe I won't finish them or maybe they'll take forever, but who cares. If I'm enjoying it...then I'll share it when they're done.

Now, if you're here specifically about the podcast....I really don't know. Matt isn't dying or anything, but I don't know when he'll have the time to come back. And I don't know when the leg will be well enough for me to get back into SilZero HQ. So we'll just have to take that one month at a time. I'm open to suggestions, though.

So that's it, my reflections on turning 40.

Integration

Back in college, I had to take a speech class and it was...fine.

I actually learned not to judge sorority girls, but that's another story.

Anyway, in my speech class, we had to do a speech that explained something about ourselves to people. Despite being into super-music mode at the time, I actually decided to do my speech on my novel - the only one I had completed in its entirety at that point. I was 17 at the time, I wrote that one when I was 15.

The basic structure of the speech was that I went through all of the characters, one by one, and explained how each of them represented a different aspect of my personality. It wasn't something I had intentionally done when I wrote it, and I'm not even sure it's that accurate. Honestly, I probably just thought it was an easy way to organize the speech and keep it interesting and just ret-conned the different pieces of myself into the characters.

I'm bringing this up, though, because I think I've made an important step in my most recent creative block.

Two days ago I was writing an update to the Persona 5 Fanfic (henceforth to be referred to as "P5F"). The basis of P5F is that Nanako, the little girl from Persona 4, is the same age as the rest of the Phantom Thieves in Persona 5, and joins them on that adventure, and all the implications that entails. The way Nanako has panned out, though, is that in many ways she takes the same position on the team as Makoto, one of the original P5 characters, and thus they have had a lot of conflict because they are very similar to one another.

The scene I was writing was basically the two of them trying to smooth things over so they can work as a team. However, from Makoto's perspective, there were still things that Nanako did wrong, and Makoto says that even though she wants to be friends with Nanako, she will continue to call out Nanako when she thinks she's doing the wrong thing.

And when I wrote that sentence...something unlocked. It was a very visceral moment, as if a tension somewhere in my subconscious had finally been resolved. It was so physically resonant that I spent the whole day trying to figure it out. Why had that sentence been so meaningful? Why did I have that reaction?

The more I thought about it, the more I thought about that college speech, about how characters are a reflection of who I am - or at least parts of who I am.

And what I realized is that the reason Makoto's line resonated so well is because it's something I've been working on a lot in my professional life.

See...when you're the leader of anything, it's an uncomfortable truth that part of your job is to call out things when someone else is not doing their job. I do not relish it, but I have become much better at it. Still being kind and humane, but also understanding that I'm not doing anyone any favors by turning a blind eye - the same thing Makoto declared she was going to do in the story.

And that's when I realized I built too much of a wall between my professional life and my creative one.

I have changed a lot in my professional life as an educator, especially over the last three years. But I haven't allowed any of those new changes and new experiences to filter into my creative work. I'm still trying to write and create things like I'm 2019 Chris - the guy who was still teaching in the classroom and who hadn't lived in a pandemic. I haven't addressed any of the topics of my professional life in any creative work - nothing about leadership, about difficult work, about negotiating between people. All of my heroes are always lone rangers, working either outside of the system or bucking it.

But...I am the system in my professional life. I'm the bad guy, "the man." And there's a different kind of story that can be told from that perspective.

I don't really know what it means yet, but this realization has been very encouraging, and I'm working to integrate all sides of my life together again - not just professional into creative, but personal as well. I mean, I have four kids, and not once have I written about being a parent.

Let's go find out where this road leads.

Tape Leg

So I messed up my leg pretty badly two weeks ago. I tried to jump over a (super small) stream and missed.

I didn’t break anything, thank goodness, but it is possible I tore stuff. I got an MRI last week and I’m waiting for the results.

I’m getting more mobile by the day, but I was told it could take at least 6 weeks to heal, maybe longer if I need surgery.

Anyway, the really relevant part of this update is that because SilZero HQ is designed to be super compact, I haven’t been able to sit at that computer because I couldn’t bend my leg that far. But this morning, I’m writing this blog post from it!

It’s still not the most comfortable, but I should be able to start working on podcast edits in small bursts, and then recording once I gain enough flexibility and it also doesn’t feel like I’m being stabbed by a thousand needles when sit on it at that angle for too long.

Reconnecting

Like many blog posts, this one has been started and stopped many times.

There's always a part of me that looks at blog posts with a sense of "nobody cares about this" or "isn't this just whining" or "a post about excuses for not making content is not content."

But part of the reason I've started and restarted this particular update is because my thinking keeps changing on the matter, so then what I wrote before doesn't make sense.

One of the problems with blogs, tweets, or even personalized podcast posts is that it's just a moment in time. And unless you do it a lot, it doesn't capture the evolution of thought. So then it just feels like "hey look, here's what I was thinking at the time" and then people go back and be like "wow you're a really inconsistent person, you were doing one thing before and now you're not doing it that way."

Which I suppose is an argument for blogging more often, isn't it? To capture the nuance of thought over time...

I'm getting off track.

--

I think I've been depressed since about March.

Well, I knew I was depressed in and around February. Not in any real medical sense of the term, but just felt kinda low and heavy and had a hard time feeling energized and motivated. I got myself out of that really bad low in February, but I don't know that I really "fixed it" in March.

Part of this depression is working in education post-COVID.

I'm not going to get into it in great detail. The only thing you really need to understand about it is that the job is harder - or at the very least a lot different - than it was before.

Pre-COVID, I was a superstar that could make things happen quickly. Post-COVID, everything goes a lot slower, but instead of me looking at the fact that the Post-COVID world is different, I blame myself. I figure that I'm not doing enough, I'm not working fast enough, smart enough, ingenious enough.

Matt once told me I was a perfectionist, and I don't think I ever really saw myself like that. But I do think he was on to something. When it comes to things I care about, like my writing, podcasting, or my work in education, I hold myself to a really high standard.

So in order to handle the fact I wasn't reaching those high standards, I just shut down portions of my personality. I numbed myself, I suppose so I could stay focused on getting the job done, on achieving the goals, on hitting the targets.

I didn't, of course. Because you're never "done" in education.

Nor should you ever want to be, until you retire.

--

Throughout June, I knew I had to reconnect to things. I actually started working on it in May. I knew I had to reconnect to the art part of all this stuff I do - the story telling, the podcasting, the writing. The art part - the part that is expressive as a human, the part that heals the soul, the part that helps you process the other events you're going through.

So much of my art identity, though, is based on the fact that I can do so much at a time. I'm a fast writer, I run the podcast by myself, I do all these things alone and people go "wow, Chris, you do all those things alone you're so amazing" and I bask in that.

But I had burned that part out of me trying to do the education work. I couldn't bear to be efficient, procedural, systems-based any more at home. This meant that, realistically, I couldn't do any projects in-progress, including editing the podcast.

(I actually sat down to edit the most recent episode weeks before it came out and physically said "eugh" then closed it. It had nothing to do with the guest, they were great, but this was one of the warning signs that told me I needed to do something different.)

So the first thing I had to do was new work completely disconnected from what I was doing.

I did three things from May through June to help with this.

MUSIC: I saw this doodad on a TikTok video and knew immediately that I had to get one. It's an Orba 2, and it's the most fun thing I've had in a while. It serves as a physical instrument with all sorts of touch responsive things, but also as a sampler and a 4-track recorder. It's been a lot of fun and a new way for me to interact with music - no computer, no instruments that I know how to play, and it has a limited tonal/chordal/scale range, so I can't even get myself overly hung up on making complicated progressions and complicated melodies. All I can do is make fun grooves and that's all I've been doing with it.

PAPERART: I bought this a bit ago. It's been slow-going, but again it's been something I can work on that is completely unconnected to stuff I've already done. But while I was doing this, I started having ideas about making paper cut-out art. I can't even really describe why I came up with this idea, I just found myself really wanting to do it.

So I did.

I bought paper and a cutting mat and an exacto knife and just...started.

It's fun!

WRITING...SORTA: I have an idea for a story I want to write, but I knew that I had to ease my way back into writing. I couldn't use my normal methods.

So I got a big blank sketchbook and some paint markers and just...started building a story in it.

It's the sloppiest, weirdest, most disorganized thing I've ever created, but it's been really good. This story is a little dark but I think it's helping me process some of the harsh stuff I encounter during my day job, which is not something I've been very good at doing. I need to create more art that's just...processing.

--

So that's been the last two months for me. As you can see, it's working, as I was happily able to edit and then record another podcast episode, and I'm feeling much better as a human being.

There's a lot of other aspects to it, but that's all I feel like writing about right now.

Study Question: What do you do to reconnect to your artistic self when you’re burned out?

The New School is Old School

You guys remember the 00s, when blogging was like, THE THING to do?

Well, we’re doing it now.

It’s pretty old advice that creators shouldn’t become overly reliant on other platforms, but I didn’t really start to think about it until the Twitter debacles. It made me re-evaluate how much I was using twitter - and how much I was actually “using it.” I mean, I did a LOT of mindless scrolling, but actual posting? And was that actual posting helping? It didn’t seem like I was reaching anyone NEW with Twitter, and the people I was already connected with weren’t getting any meaningful communication.

So we’re going old school. I’m going to be using the website and the blog to send more updates and talk about stuff. Ironically, I will probably also post links on Twitter as well. Can’t quit the bird ENTIRELY!

ALSO, this blog has COMMENTS. Please comment!

Right now I’m in the middle of production for the SUMMER SIDE STORIES. The one for Maharo III dropped yesterday and I’m extremely pleased with it. There’s a spot where Maharo yells “Yoooooouth” for a long time while the other guy talks under his breath, but I didn’t say “yooouth” long enough so I had to sound-hack it to extend it and it sounds pretty seamless!

The Summer Side Stories are by necessity - I had to travel two weeks in June for work and then I have two weeks in July coming up for vacation travel. Matt is also busy, so we only have one recording scheduled for July. But I’m actually glad they’re happening, it’s been fun to write and make them and it’s helping me get ready for Season 5.

And yes, I’m already thinking about Season 5. I have the basic concept done already, and yes it’ll be back in Star Wars. I think. I haven’t actually talked to Matt about it.

Speaking of Star Wars, I’m also outlining a new book (Jane 3 is kind of stalled and I think I need to take a step back from it) that’s heavily influenced from the Mandalorian/Book of Boba Fett. I am also halfway done recording a really interesting “dark” Star Wars audiodrama story for the Patreon.

So all in all, I’m happy to have a little time off to get some work done on projects.

See ya tomorrow!

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Updates to the Patreon, Starting August, 2020

Sil Zero Media Patreon Tiers, 2020

$1 Monthly - Thanks! - We appreciate your support for making the show! Every dollar helps keep production moving forward and equipment up to date. 

$5 Monthly Options: Get extra audio content! See what package and content works best for you, or select the EVERYTHING PACKAGE to get it all! 

Audiodrama Package: Get access to the audiodrama DROIDHEAD, a story about a Jedi solving small problems on a planet in a galaxy far far away. Also gives access to any additional audiodramas. 

Author Chris Package: If you’re a fan of Chris’s book HEART AND SOUL FIST, this is the package for you. Get updates to the sequel to HEART AND SOUL FIST and various short stories (both written and audio versions) that Chris writes. Also included in this package will be the audiobook version of HEART AND SOUL FIST and the follow up shorts stories WHEN THE DUST SETTLED. 

Behind the Scenes Package: Access to SIL ZERO REWIND, a series of podcasts where Chris, Matt, and sometimes special guests re-listen to Silhouette Zero from the beginning and talk about how the episodes were made. This also gives access to CHIT CHAT WITH CHRIS AND MATT, GM notes, and any HOW TO podcasts that Chris makes on podcast production, GMing, or writing.

Everything Package: Get all of the above packages for $5 a month! 

$2 Per Post Options: Select any of the above packages, but pay per post. You only pay when new content is posted.