The most frustrating thing about recovering is trying to find momentum. But I'm working on it, building a bit more each day. Finally got into a routine with making coffee and having an hour of craft time while listening to an audiobook or lo-fi girl each morning.
Mostly I'm working on my sewing, trying to make a block pattern. This is a map of my body that I can use to make my own sewing patterns. I need this because my body is now a massively different shape and it could open a huge world of possibilities to me - and save loads of money in that I don't need to buy new patterns each time I want to make something new.
But after eight attempts, mockups and adjustments, I have given up - again. This is taking too much time away from making the clothing and if I'm ever going to have enough clothing to get me through winter, I need to start sewing those clothes.
The goal is to also make sure those clothes fit me. So I'm starting with a simple pattern I've made before. It's like a tank top from woven cloth I can wear in the summer around the farm and in the winter as an underlayer. I love the Merchant and Mills Workbook as it has a collection of patterns that together make a simple capsule wardrobe. They show how to adjust the patterns to make different things (a tank top can be transformed into a skirt, a jacket into a coat) by changing a couple of design elements or the fabric. It's been a great starting place for me, but the patterns are designed for someone who is considerably less curvy than me, so I end up having to do quite a lot of adjustments to the patterns. But once I get it right, it's really nice, so it helps build my confidence that I can adjust patterns to fit my body.
Just having the little bit of craft time each morning makes a huge difference to my well-being.
I'm enjoying spending less time on the computer although I admit, my ability to read and reply to emails has reduced dramatically.
I'm also having trouble getting back into producing my youtube videos. I have several on the go, but I get stuck at the part where I edit the voiceover. I hate the sound of my voice and trying to learn new software to do this part... I wonder if I am earning enough yet to outsource that part? Not quite. But soon I hope.
There's also a bit of self-imposed pressure going on. I've reached a small measure of success with this medium, so I'm afraid to try new things and fail. I'm afraid not to improve with each new video. This is holding me back.
There's also the way that youtube interacts with creators. It uses a lot of the dopamine feedback that social media and gambling use. Last week, I had an old video do well out of nowhere. From under 100 views a day to over 2000 views a day for a couple of days. That felt really good. But I didn't actually do anything to earn that feeling really good. It was something outside my control that made the video take off. But I still got the dopamine hit.
Then after a couple of days, two things happened. With the increase of views, decreased the money the video generated per view - so it was almost the same amount of money as I would get normally. That was a bit of a letdown. But that's part of doing youtube.
Worse, after a few days, the views went back to normal. Well, maybe a smidge more than normal. Well, maybe more than that. But the huge drop in views made me feel bad inside. Like I had done something wrong. Even though it had nothing to do with my actions.
I can see how people get addicted to this.
Both the high and the low squashed my energy to work on new videos.
I don't like this feeling I get from creating youtube videos. There's a lot of pressure and a lot of things I cannot control. I want to focus instead on improving my video-making and storytelling skills. A lot like how I started this blog to improve my writing skills - the goal is to learn by doing.
Maybe some way to ration my time on the computer. To focus on videos instead of looking at the stats youtube gives me? I don't know.
3 comments:
Your morning routine sounds lovely, and I'm glad it increases your well-being. I hope it'll help you find momentum again.
If you're struggling with creating a block pattern, it definitely makes sense to go and make what you want/need to make. As you adjust the patterns you work on, you'll eventually turn them into something that fits you really well, and some of them can become your block, the base from which you can change design elements to get different looks.
Sorry to hear about the rollercoaster those Youtube stats sent you on. That's totally their goal, and it sucks. I do think that focusing on the videos themselves, on what you want to share and how you want to share it, is indeed the best thing to do. You may not always improve every single aspect of every video you create, but you will always learn something — it's a good thing that that's your goal! I know it's not always easy to remember it, but what you wrote here can serve as a good reminder whenever you need one…
I can relate to a lot of what you're saying, even though I'm not yet actively working on the thing(s) I want to create — be it sewing projects or that podcast idea I've had in mind for a while… (Which, by the way, makes me wonder whether exchanging voice editing services once I finally get started might help us both… I'll keep the idea in mind and will let you know if I think that's something I could do for you!)
Editing voice is a challenge. I never noticed before, but I have long pauses at odd parts of a sentence while I gather my thoughts and figure out what direction I was heading. It's very weird hearing this for the first time. I can't imagine what other people think.
I would be interested in exploring an exchange.
Yes, listening to ourselves "from the outside" can feel really weird… At the same time, other people also pause in odd places to gather their thoughts, and we don't notice it all that much in the course of a conversation—so they probably don't notice it much either when we do it. On a recording, it becomes more obvious to everyone because we're not engaged in an exchange that requires both parties to work equally on receiving a message and answering it.
As for the exchange, I'll keep it in mind if/when I finally do something with my podcast idea. I'm busy with other projects at the moment, but I hope I can get back to that one at some point. I'll be in touch when that happens and we'll see what would work best for us!
Post a Comment