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May. 20th, 2024 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adiva_calandiaHhhhhello?
MAN, so, hello. For the first time in four years, I am unemployed, not actively looking for a job, and feeling ... bored?
The Cliff's Notes: in 2020 I got a job in game dev as a writer. The job was challenging, rewarding, MASSIVELY triggering and retraumatizing, taught me a lot, let me meet some amazing people, and ended abruptly in 2023 when our parent company cut most of the studio before game launch. I was fortunate enough to be quickly picked up at another game studio run by legendary designer Jordan Weisman, so I only had about a month of downtime. The startup I was working for initially had me working as a writer, but I quickly acquired more responsibility and management duties because I don't know how to set boundaries. This job ended abruptly at the end of April 2024 when some of our funding didn't come through and the studio was forced to downsize.
So ... here I am! Funemployed for the first time in years.
Today I'm sitting here feeling guilt. Why? Because I'm still in contact with folks who are working at the Weisman startup, and I am keenly aware of how many things I didn't get done there. I was only ever able to finish one project. The layoff happened when I was finally getting close to finishing one of the biggest ones I'd been working on with a writer and designer since September, and finally getting some traction on another that I'd been working on with a different designer since October. When I was handed a tutorials project back in December, it dragged on and on until I had to hand it over to another project manager so that I could work on the other game projects I'd put on hold. Even the small projects I'd tried to get going with the idea that they'd be rapid to execute ... I couldn't finish.
And while I know for a fact that those projects were handed off to someone I trust, I feel bad that he now has to finish them. And I have a gnawing suspicion that some of them are going to simply get abandoned, after all those months of work I did. I feel like I let down the teams I was trying to lead, and made problems for people downstream from me.
Rationally, I know that this isn't (mostly) true. Even Jordan recognized from early this year that my teams were struggling to finish things because he kept asking us to move onto other projects, which were supposed to be small and fast but never were. And, rationally, I know that failures happen, and that I was learning at a breakneck speed on the job -- you can't get better at something without fucking up a few times. And, rationally, I know that everyone around me found me incredibly impressive. They kept telling me so! Jordan said he wished he could keep me on and hoped he could figure out a way to bring me back.
But, you know. Rationality ain't the strong suit of an anxious brain.
I've always struggled with finishing things. Our musical Sarah Blackwater is the longest, most complex thing I've ever finished, and in some ways it does feel very unfinished, even now, five years later. (Lauren was writing music up until the eleventh hour, and there's structural stuff I know I could improve.) Maybe part of the reason I'm reluctant to go back to it is because if I restart work on it, I'm afraid I'll never finish it again. Right now it is imperfect, rough, but complete.
Four years into my game dev career and I've never actually been there to finish a game. Admittedly, I've only been at two companies. I don't think this is even a very unusual experience in the industry. But it still feels rough. It feels like maybe I'm not capable of finishing things. Maybe I'll only ever write first drafts, and unfinished ones at that.
Of course, I can point at things I have finished. Papers in school. School! Blog posts. Needlework projects. Games. It just feels like those things are all dwarfed by the pile of stuff with its progress bar at 75%.
I dunno. I have therapy on Wednesday and I'll talk about this then. I know -- rationally, yet again -- that this is a skill I can build, in the same way I'm starting to build parkour skills. (I'm taking a parkour class, btw!) Little by little. Start small and low to the ground. I was once able to do this, so I can do it again, but not if I immediately try to throw myself off a building and expect to be able to do a backflip and a three-point landing. Write something all the way to the end.
Maybe starting here, with a journal post. Hello, Dreamwidth. Anyone still out there?
MAN, so, hello. For the first time in four years, I am unemployed, not actively looking for a job, and feeling ... bored?
The Cliff's Notes: in 2020 I got a job in game dev as a writer. The job was challenging, rewarding, MASSIVELY triggering and retraumatizing, taught me a lot, let me meet some amazing people, and ended abruptly in 2023 when our parent company cut most of the studio before game launch. I was fortunate enough to be quickly picked up at another game studio run by legendary designer Jordan Weisman, so I only had about a month of downtime. The startup I was working for initially had me working as a writer, but I quickly acquired more responsibility and management duties because I don't know how to set boundaries. This job ended abruptly at the end of April 2024 when some of our funding didn't come through and the studio was forced to downsize.
So ... here I am! Funemployed for the first time in years.
Today I'm sitting here feeling guilt. Why? Because I'm still in contact with folks who are working at the Weisman startup, and I am keenly aware of how many things I didn't get done there. I was only ever able to finish one project. The layoff happened when I was finally getting close to finishing one of the biggest ones I'd been working on with a writer and designer since September, and finally getting some traction on another that I'd been working on with a different designer since October. When I was handed a tutorials project back in December, it dragged on and on until I had to hand it over to another project manager so that I could work on the other game projects I'd put on hold. Even the small projects I'd tried to get going with the idea that they'd be rapid to execute ... I couldn't finish.
And while I know for a fact that those projects were handed off to someone I trust, I feel bad that he now has to finish them. And I have a gnawing suspicion that some of them are going to simply get abandoned, after all those months of work I did. I feel like I let down the teams I was trying to lead, and made problems for people downstream from me.
Rationally, I know that this isn't (mostly) true. Even Jordan recognized from early this year that my teams were struggling to finish things because he kept asking us to move onto other projects, which were supposed to be small and fast but never were. And, rationally, I know that failures happen, and that I was learning at a breakneck speed on the job -- you can't get better at something without fucking up a few times. And, rationally, I know that everyone around me found me incredibly impressive. They kept telling me so! Jordan said he wished he could keep me on and hoped he could figure out a way to bring me back.
But, you know. Rationality ain't the strong suit of an anxious brain.
I've always struggled with finishing things. Our musical Sarah Blackwater is the longest, most complex thing I've ever finished, and in some ways it does feel very unfinished, even now, five years later. (Lauren was writing music up until the eleventh hour, and there's structural stuff I know I could improve.) Maybe part of the reason I'm reluctant to go back to it is because if I restart work on it, I'm afraid I'll never finish it again. Right now it is imperfect, rough, but complete.
Four years into my game dev career and I've never actually been there to finish a game. Admittedly, I've only been at two companies. I don't think this is even a very unusual experience in the industry. But it still feels rough. It feels like maybe I'm not capable of finishing things. Maybe I'll only ever write first drafts, and unfinished ones at that.
Of course, I can point at things I have finished. Papers in school. School! Blog posts. Needlework projects. Games. It just feels like those things are all dwarfed by the pile of stuff with its progress bar at 75%.
I dunno. I have therapy on Wednesday and I'll talk about this then. I know -- rationally, yet again -- that this is a skill I can build, in the same way I'm starting to build parkour skills. (I'm taking a parkour class, btw!) Little by little. Start small and low to the ground. I was once able to do this, so I can do it again, but not if I immediately try to throw myself off a building and expect to be able to do a backflip and a three-point landing. Write something all the way to the end.
Maybe starting here, with a journal post. Hello, Dreamwidth. Anyone still out there?
no subject
Date: 2024-05-20 08:04 pm (UTC)(also, hello! it's good to see you here!!)
no subject
Date: 2024-05-20 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-20 08:29 pm (UTC)(now will I ever finish another book draft again, WHO CAN SAY. future problem I suppose)
no subject
Date: 2024-05-20 09:33 pm (UTC)<333
Anyway HELLO FRIEND HI, I'm delighted to see you around!! (And oooh, parkour. That sounds great!)
no subject
Date: 2024-05-22 04:21 pm (UTC)Yeah, and I'm starting to think that it's not just the daily flow state of "can I have a couple uninterrupted hours to work on [thing]," it's the larger-scale flow state of "can I have a couple uninterrupted weeks/months to work on [thing 1] which leads to [thing 2] which leads to [thing 3]," as opposed to getting done with [thing 1] and then having to put it on pause. Whiiiiich was kind of a problem across the organization, also, so more evidence that this wasn't a ME thing.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-21 03:02 am (UTC)I am trying to get better about posting on here myself (see also: my last post in a calendar year was fangirl word vomit [affectionate] about Dune part 2) but I am always reading!
Thoughts in no particular order:
- As Gen says, finishing things is hard. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten to 75%+ done with reading a book / watching a show / finishing a craft project / etc, and then my ability to close that final gap just drops to nothing. And that's without me gesturing vaguely at the pile of story WIPs that have languished for literal years. It happens to the best of us.
- That said, it sounds like a lot of your "inability to finish" with these most recent things (games, work projects, etc) has nothing to do with your own abilities. You got let go before launch (which sadly sounds absurdly common for the industry) and with the projects at job #2, you kept getting shifted to other projects! If you bosses had wanted you to prioritize finishing Thing A, they wouldn't have kept showing up with things B, C, D on down the line. I shake my finger at them.
- Being funemployed is a weird liminal space. I'm glad you've got a chance to talk it out on Wednesday.
- Parkour class sounds fun as hell!
HI AGAIN, BYE AGAIN. ♥ ♥ ♥
no subject
Date: 2024-05-22 04:24 pm (UTC)Finishing stuff! Is so hard! Is it the undiagnosed ADHD?? Is it the ravages of capitalism?? maybe she's born with it
lmao every time I say "I'm taking a parkour class" people go "!!!" and then I have to explain that so far all we've done is crawl around on the ground in the park trying to avoid goose poop. It is definitely fun though! Maybe tonight we'll jump on some things!
no subject
Date: 2024-05-26 12:29 am (UTC)