Exharks #4 - Ex-Positions

“Jeez, so he not only made his video game avatar a character, he made his own pennames into characters to do more stupid little adventures with? Jeez, what kinda cringe narco dweeb is this guy?”

Bobbi, Miner and Crafter Extraordinaire, was sitting on the edge of the bed, rolling her eyes after hearing Sharkerbob’s story of their quite similar origins. Sharkerbob came over with two bottles of water, handing her one as he sat down on the bed next to her. It was the only refreshment he could provide, and even the bottles had to come from Bobbi’s own inventory. For that matter, the bed was the only furniture to sit on.

He gave her a flat look. “We might not be him, but we’re what he’d be in our circumstances, and he’s what we’d be in his. So lay off him a little, won’t ya?”

Exharks #3 - Hat Tricks

He flew in a straight line from Brixity for an hour, heading Northwest, approximate to the sun’s path, carefully avoiding the three towns he spotted. He didn’t get close enough to see the details, but none of them had the same reddish hue to the buildings, so he had to wonder if the largely brick construction was unique to Brixity, and what the cultural or economic factors were to cause that.

Exharks #2 - Unequivalent Exchange

When Old Jaim had mentioned he’d been spotted a few days ago by “sentries”, Sharkerbob could have guessed they’d been spying on him the entire time since. He’d probably had a few tails following him or keeping track from a distance as soon as he entered the city. So he wasn’t too surprised to see two of the dark-skinned humans standing where he’d initially dropped down from his base. What did mildly surprise him was the fact they were dressed in somewhat outlandish costumes, distinct from the rest of the civilians.

Exharks #1 - New Horizons

Author’s Note: Exharks directly follows the short story Eprologue, which itself is a follow-up to the short story Imaginator.

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The dawn saw Sharkerbob leaning against the metal rail that surrounded the garden balcony off the stern of his hovering base. He stared down into the valley below, wondering if this would be the day he’d finally work up the nerve to actually leave his vessel. One would think three months of complete isolation would have made him eager to run towards civilization at the first opportunity, but when the moment of truth came, he’d found himself freezing up at the thought.

Eprologue: Not So Final, Perhaps

Author's Note: This story is a direct follow-up to Imaginator - The Final Story of Sharkerbob.

It began, as many profound and thought-provoking stories must surely do, with a guy sitting around doing nothing. Behold Salvador “Sharkerbob” Roberts, former writer, current prisoner, a penname incarnated into his own world of fantasies, in a most boring way: trapped on a floating island by one of his own characters, left with only his own morose thoughts to keep him company. Pity him, that he might feel validated in his malaise. Or don’t. Up to you.

Flower Knights: Hope Lies Past The Horizon

“Enjoying retirement?”

Yellow Rose looked up from her tea and book to see an imposingly tall woman giving her an amicable smile, and not-so-amicably blocking her sun. Blue Daisy was wearing her usual eponymous color scheme, hat and long coat and boots all a match broken only by her impractically long blonde hair. Unlike other Flower Knights, Daisy hadn’t bothered using Color Magic to change her hair to match her theme.

Well, neither did Rose, once her title was nullified. The once-brilliant-blonde had let her hair fade back to it’s natural coppery curls. The better to move on, or so she told herself.

“Not especially,” said the former Captain. She took a sip of her jasmine drink, then set the cup, and her book, down. She motioned to the empty seat next to her. “I’d intended to serve for my natural life span. Instead, I’m forced to quit early. A conqueror doesn’t particularly trust their new territory’s former knights. Fancy that.”

Daisy took the seat, folding herself into the chair. A stone circle with the thinnest of cushions, framed in painted metal, the exceptionally tall woman wondered how anyone could sit comfortably for long enough to read anything. But the fancily decorated tea-house was small to begin with; no doubt the idea was to keep traffic flowing rather than lingering. Good thing she didn’t intend for this to be an overlong meeting.

“What if I told you your early retirement was just a temporary leave?” said Daisy.

The Problems With Using Self-Loathing For Motivation

I have “joked” in the past that self-loathing and self-directed spite had become one of the driving motivators for me when it came to creative production. It took me too long to realize that it wasn’t a laughing matter. I ended up unironically taking “I’m a failed creator” to heart. I found myself writing and drawing not because I wanted to write and draw, but because I resented not having done enough of either. I’m not sure when this line of thinking truly started, but it has almost certainly been going on for at least the last decade. It’s only fairly recently that I’ve considered just how much this sentiment actually compounded the problems I was having.

The problem with this sort of thinking is it becomes a two-pronged self-sabotaging attack on one’s mental health. They say that True Art comes from Pain, but it’s one thing to write to exorcise your demons, and it’s another to deliberately injure yourself in order to get writing. It’s one thing to give yourself a little kick in the ass to get motivated into action, but if you’re relying continuously on that kick just to maintain momentum, you’re going to end up with a raw butt and broken toes and an inability to act at all.

Firstly, there is simply the act of miring oneself in a rancid stew of negativity. I would whip myself mentally over and over with horrible feelings and deprecating lectures to try and stoke my inner fires. Over time, however, heaping on the crap only served to infect the well. I had been sub-consciously training myself to associate being creative with also being miserable and desperate. Eventually, the anxiety of that crowded out whatever else I might be trying to say or do with whatever story I was trying to work on. It made me start to tunnel vision on certain negative emotions as the only themes I felt drawn to write.

Moreover, wallowing in such depressing emotions only made it all the easier to get overwhelmed by frustration, forcing me to have to break off more frequently to numb myself with distractions to cool my anxieties. Naturally, the frequent procrastination would then compound the problem of feeling like crap for not getting anything done. Eventually, this negative feedback loop would completely cripple my gumption, so that even trying to get started on a project in the first place felt like a Sisyphean task.

Secondly, when I did finally manage to write something, the accomplishment would result in an exhausting emotional rollercoaster, an intense high followed by a horrible crash. It was always elating, to feel like I’d broken the chains holding me down, that I finally was able to make something again. A sudden burst of euphoric positivity would erupt from the aching cavity in my mind, and I would finally feel good about myself for another brief period. I would capture that energy with frantic fervor, and ride it for as long as I could make it last.

And then, the positive energy would burn out, because it’s not my natural state. It’s a bucket of gasoline on the fire, not a big stack of logs. Whether I finished my project or simply made a solid chunk of progress on it, I could look back and feel amazing in the moment. But then, when I would take a much needed break, it’s like the chair would get kicked right out from under me, and I suddenly found myself backsliding into the pit. By defying my state as the “writer who can’t write”, I’d now undermined part of the engine I was relying on to keep momentum going. The positive energy was used up, while the negative energy had been temporarily canceled out; by the time I recovered from overworking myself, my gumption was gone once more. I’d be back to square one, unable to get the fire going again, much less keep it burning steadily.

This was the trap I fell into, and I am still working to break myself out of that toxic cycle. Maybe most people reading this will have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe this is all just part of my own depression manifesting in my creative process. Maybe this is part of some undiagnosed neuro-divergency on my part. Maybe this is actually an incredibly common and completely obvious thing that a lot of creatives inevitably go through and get over, and it’s just my turn to go through the phase.

Whatever the case, I hope this little bout of introspection might help you a bit with your own frustrations, be they artistic or otherwise. I can’t say I have any good life-coaching advice on the subject, but what I can say is sometimes it’s best to just take a step back and reassess yourself; what are your real motivations, where is your energy truly coming from, and is there perhaps a pattern to the roadblocks you keep finding yourself encountering? Humans are creatures of habit and can be prone to getting stuck in our problems. For some, we can find ourselves deep in a rut before realizing it. If you find yourself falling into bad cycles, take the time to evaluate the situation, and see what you can do to adjust your efforts, instead of burning yourself out repeating the same mistakes. It seems obvious when said, but these sorts of traps can sneak up on people.

Good luck and godspeed and take care of yourselves!