I’m going to tell you a secret. You will never guess this secret. It certainly has nothing to do with the title of this post.

I’m tired.

I know. We all thought it was impossible. Surely, the thousand milligrams of caffeine per day would stop me from ever feeling vulnerable or weak. Or feeling period. But here we are.

My goal in starting this blog was to make a post weekly, and last week I failed. It’s not that I didn’t put a drastic amount of effort into a creative work, it just wasn’t this one. I put myself on a self-imposed deadline to finish the first draft of my layout for Blightfall by Sunday night. I missed that deadline, too. Knocked it out the next morning, though.

One, holy guacamole is that a feeling. To see this game that I’ve labored over for so long be sort-of “done”? It’s not where I want it to be, it’s still a first draft, and you can definitely tell that I got better at layout as I went along. But still … felt good.

Two, I worked SO MUCH on it. If I didn’t have a hard deadline, I would take a little time off, but I don’t.

But Matt, why do you have a hard deadline?

As you may have noticed in the very first image, I got into Zinetopia! BackerKit is celebrating Zine Month with this event, and it’s been my target all along for my first design project. I have no idea if this was based on merit or if any jabroni off the street would have been added. (They’re still wanting more applicants, so if you are interested, click here (you jabroni))

Zinetopia has a hard start date, Feb 2nd, when all projects go live at the same time. That means I can’t slack. I need to:

• Get this layout to perfection. Not just design, but make sure I have hyperlinks, bookmarks, etc.
• Make a second layout for the free version.
• Make the actual crowdfunding page.
• Figure out stretch goals and cross-collaboration stuff (the various topias usually have the bonus of the projects being paired up. Backing both paired projects gets you extra goodies).
• Make a press kit?
• Have physical promo stuff (someone said I could for a local con. I didn’t ask them, they just assumed I would do it. Much like BackerKit, they are likely bullying me).

That being said … I’m way ahead of the game, and some of these are self-imposed things that I refuse to budge on. I want the game to be ‘done’ and for the full rules to be out because I want backers to get it quickly and be able to play it while they’re excited. That’s the main goal of all this, to have people play my game and enjoy it. The crowdfunding just helps me recoup some of the costs and brings eyes to the project.

There are people in Zinetopia who are still figuring out the rules for their game, which I’m not saying as a slight. I’m just … too intense, frankly. I wish I could be chill. I have no chill. But there are advantages to no chill: egregious work ethic, having lots of assets to fill my crowdfund page with, getting to take anxiety medication. So many wins.

I don’t want this blog to be only about *my thing*. It’s Critmas, for Crit’s sake! I want to be able to participate, to write reviews on this and give shout outs and even make stuff for other people’s games. I mean, I have time to give 5-star reviews, but I want to do more. However, if I miss at Zinetopia because I didn’t try hard enough, I don’t think I would be happy with myself.

After Zinetopia, yes, I’m going to run so many games and have a blast with a calmer schedule. And I’ve learned an important lesson from all this: go slow and enjoy the process. I kind of shot myself in the foot by joining Zinetopia, but the kind of shooting yourself in the foot that makes you run faster than you’d like, not fall over in excruciating pain. I’ll work on the next game at a sustainable pace.

I don’t want this to come across as complaining, because I’m not. I’m so happy to have these two things happen on the same day (it’s like the universe was waiting for me to finish the draft so they could send me the Zinetopia acceptance). I’m proud of what I’m making and I enjoy the creative process immensely.

I also recognize my flaws and that, if I don’t get funded, I will fall into a pit of despair and go on a solo vacation away from my family in which I will take a vow of silence and rediscover the wonders of nature, growing various amounts of facial hair and developing a musk until I overcome the trauma. And I don’t think I have the PTO for that kind of a journey.

So yeah, I missed a week of blogging for the first time. To be honest, it might not be the last during Zinetopia.

But that doesn’t mean your father and I don’t love you.