Jul 2022
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Jul '22

I've always been the type of person that when I want to do something, I do it until it's done. It's like a nagging in the back of my mind or an itch telling me, "you could be making something cool right now" or " if you start now, you'll be done sooner." And I've always been thankful for this thing, so much so I've probably taken advantage of it. It's made me naive to how some people don't have that voice in the back of their heads. Or maybe their voice grew silent after a while.

I'm talking about burnout.

It's never really happened to me before. I'll admit I've pushed myself to get things done, and it has made me tired in the past. But I've never reached a point where I just had to stop because I couldn't do anymore.

At least that was true until now. I never understood how people just let their projects go unfinished. I always had the willpower to push through. But I finally understand it. It's not always a choice. Sometimes there is just so much work it's near impossible to keep pushing through. And chances are, if you tried to fight through it, the product or end result would be subpar compared to what it would be had you been in a better state.

But you might be wondering what finally pushed me too far.

I'm working on a visual novel game. I'm the writer, I find edit and make most of the visual assets, the music, advertising, and I've even made a comic that connects to the game.

In the past, all I had to do was plan, write, and promote. I used to have a team of five, but now it's just one other person and me. I honestly thought I could keep steam flowing, but it's like I'm juggling while trying to run a race.

If you've ever been burned out, let us know what project you were working on. And if it was a comic or novel, feel free to promote it here.

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TheLemmaLlama
Jul '22

I'm kind of similar; if there's something I want to do, I just have the itch to do it and it just kind of ... happens. So I've never really understood people who say "I want to do X but I don't know how to start". I've experienced "I have to do X but don't know how to start" or "I feel like I should do X but don't know how to start", but if I genuinely want to do something, I have no trouble getting started at all.

So I try to avoid giving advice to those people since I tend to assume they don't actually want to do the things and just like the idea of doing the thing, and assuming you know other people's true intentions better than they do is never a good basis for a healthy conversation XD

I do get this, though. Unlike your voice, my voice doesn't push me to finish things, only do the thing I'm currently interested in. And my interests are very fickle :stuck_out_tongue:

I've never really considered it 'burnout' though when my voice grows silent. Maybe because it's often replaced by a different voice telling me to do a different thing. But even if it isn't, and I literally don't feel like doing anything at all at the moment, it's not usually a response to me pushing myself too hard, except when the silence comes after actually finishing something, in which case it's more of a 'what now?' kind of dealio.

Hm, but then again I'm currently not feeling motivated to work on my grad school project, and I guess it's possibly because I've been studying this thing for years now. But it still feels like it's just natural shifting of interests, rather than actual burnout. Seems very different to what you're going through.

So yeah, for a lot of people, letting their projects go unfinished isn't a choice - sometimes they're just genuinely overwhelmed by all the wirk and it's impossible to keep pushing through. But there are also people like me who are just fickle, and don't really see the need to push through if we don't want to, and see unfinished projects not as failures but as something that we can always come back to if we still feel it's worth it :]

Lensing
Jul '22

I had several burn outs,
burn outs from working, training too much, burn outs from projects I have been working on.
Big and small burn outs.
The problem with burn outs is that it can lead to not finishing a project or even
giving up on the thing you are doing.
I have one friend who burned himself out in the recording studio he was working
in and he ended up destroying his equipment.
When I finished writing, recording, mixing and mastering an album I feel burned out
and it takes one year until I can listen to the music on the album again when it is released
and I feel creatively burned out. I normally do the artwork for albums too but I couldn´t
anymore because I already did all the creative work for the music, so I gave it to
someone else.

When I´m working on a comic then the burn out can "blurr my vision" in a way that
I don´t know if it looks good or bad anymore, but that´s just a small burn out.

A big burn out from work (night shifts working at concerts), making music and
drawing once got me into the hospital when I was 42. I couldn´t sleep anymore.
I don´t know if that´s what you call a burn out, I´m not a psycologist

sable40k
Jul '22

There are times when I don't really feel like working on a comic, though I'd say the worst burnout I've had was at work, where it was also accompanied by things like brain fog, stress, and (somehow also) boredom.

In most cases, I force my way through it. Once I get going, it's a lot easier to keep going... it's the getting started part that's the hardest. Maybe there's a better approach to solving things, but I don't know what it is :slight_smile:

I'm also great at productive procrastination. Nothing like getting things done to avoid the thing I don't want to do.

WoollyPAR
Jul '22

I've had to take sorta long periods of time off from my comic, and luckily I can kinda afford that because I have a monthly schedule, but all the drawing still takes a toll. Drawing a page could be the easiest thing one day and the next it feels impossible cuz I just can't take one more thing to do. I always have that voice and sometimes you just have to know when to NOT listen to it. Sometimes, I really shouldn't draw that day and instead read something, play a game, talk to a friend, or just clean the house. I try my best to avoid burnout, and I'm still really young, so I have yet to see the worst of it, but every now and then I want to cry when I think about everything I still need to do.

And sometimes I get that voice in my head telling me to be productive while I'm working on my comic and it's telling me to do something else, but if I go do something else, it's telling me the deadline for my next episode is coming up and I need to get on it- ugh, it's just an ugly little voice, I really wish it'd just let me do things without guilting me for whatever I do. It's just like I can't relax sometimes.

I'm constantly pushing myself with my art too, which is good, but that also makes it more exhausting. It's not enough that I draw the best page in my career so far, my the next page I draw has to be even better. And usually, that's the way it turns out, but it makes starting a new page really intimidating, and I don't draw unless I'm ready to make some serious art.

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And again, that's not the worst way to tackle it, but it sometimes results in me not doing anything at all because I don't feel ready to do my best. That's not just with comics either, that's how I was in school and that's how I am with a lot of things.

I've said a lot and I could probably say more, but I'm tired and should've gone to sleep a while ago

Kalebell
Jul '22
TheLemmaLlama

It can also be that they want the thing they want to work on to be perfect. Then they procrastinate because they are subconsciously afraid to fail at it.

I don't relate to this because I very rarely get burnt out. The only time I would say is close to that is when I can't figure out a problem and end up getting annoyed and taking a break.

powerplantanimations
Jul '22

I only take breaks when I'm sick. Ngl, I force myself to finish a webcomic. I just want to get as much scripts done before school starts. But in all honesty, I just want to get noticed by Tapas so I'm working extra hard on that despite the fact that I get burnt out. It be a process.


Description: Naota Nakaoka was just your typical harem hearthrob until his life was cut short. Now he's been reincarnated .... as a stick figure. How will he be able to rebuild his harem in a world where where anime tropes (and faces) don't exist??? Find out in That Stick Figure Isekai!!! Episodes every Friday!

N1ghtm4r3
Aug '22

yes, mostly cause if i go to hard i can make really dumb mistakes with the story and art i might regret later

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