rubystrix
patreon
An update for December: 'working hiatus', trying out some new things and a form to help me for the future!
🕑 Added 2020-11-16 23:54:13 +0000 UTCby now most of you have likely heard or read that I’ve been considering taking a “hiatus’.
I’m using this term very loosely because in all actuality, I’m not really taking a break in the way that I’m sure many of you would encourage me to.
I realized in the last couple of months that there are certain things I absolutely love about my job and others that make me really stressed.
I love voice acting, I love the creative outlet and the different characters I get to play. I love you guys, my community, my peers, my friends. I really enjoy the patreon monthly audios where I sometimes have to take really vague ideas and tags that sometimes don’t fit and make something out of it- the challenge and spontaneity of that is so fun and those audios have been some of my best work recently.
I’ve been trying to keep a very regular schedule this year, because that is always what everyone will tell you is the key to success as a content creator on any platform. People learn to rely on you and your schedule, they start to look forward to your uploads. But this has been the hardest part for me these last few months. Because of covid, i only have the chance to record once a week in most cases, which means that one tiny mistake or accident (like two hours of recording getting corrupted) can affect the entire week’s worth of content.
that sucks. it makes it really stressful to create.
I also find myself bored sometimes because i’ve started to focus so much on the schedule that the fun of recording and creating gets lost. I know that if I’m bored.. it will show in my content and that is not fair- to me or you. I need to find a better way that works for me and my creative process, my time slots for recording and the rest of my schedule, but also works for all of you as well.
the other thing that prompted this is that I feel like I am always working, and am never enough.
None of you made me feel this way, let me say that right now. all of you are always so kind and so supportive of me and it means a lot. Being a creator is very hard. working in any creative field is so hard, because art in any form is objective.
there is really not a clear indicator of “better” in most cases [outside of technical skill] so as a creator you are constantly comparing yourself to everyone else. All creators love to publicly celebrate or push milestones and they should! We all deserve to be proud of ourselves and our communities! There’s nothing wrong with it, in and of itself- I love to celebrate milestones because you all deserve to know how incredibly grateful I am for your support- but doing that also shows other creators where you and they lie in reference to one another and it can often make you wonder if you’re “good enough.”
like I said, there is nothing wrong with celebrating and i will continue to do it and encourage others to as well, but when you are constantly surrounded by
> “we hit x followers!”
> “We made the patreon goal!”
> “we’re in the top x% of onlyfans!”
it can make you obsessed with numbers.
I am currently obsessed with numbers and it is causing very real imposter syndrome.
I often have feelings that I dont deserve the success I do have because im not good enough. My engagement on reddit and YouTube has been at a steady decline for months, despite the fact that I am growing- just very, very slowly, so I’m constantly questioning “what am I doing wrong?”
I’m always stressed and I’m always thinking im not good enough. Again, at no fault of anyone but myself.
I want to take this time in december to think about a lot of things and try new things out! I want to figure out how I can measure my success in a way that doesn’t hurt my mental health. I want to record and upload more spontaneously and work on other kinds of projects that I may not have been able to work on because of my strict schedule.
So, while I am taking a “hiatus” in a sense, I’ll still be uploading content. I’ll still be working on things; I just won’t be sticking to a tight schedule. I want to try out some new things, and possibly make some changes to the way my patreon, reddit and youtube work [and maybe twitch and onlyfans as well] because I never want to feel stagnant, and I never want my content to feel stale to you.
I had thought about pausing my patreon pledges for the month of december, however, I think what I will do instead, is use this time to try out something new and also use patreon to keep people updated on some of the other things I’m trying out and working on.
there WILL be audios posted in december [on all platforms, including patreon] but it won’t be done the way i’ve been doing it. I dont even know how I’m going to do it yet, because this is part of the process! If you want to unsubscribe for december, that’s totally understandable. For those that stick with me and help me test things out- thank you so much!
I hope taking this time ‘off’ will help me reconnect with the things I love about my job so that I can keep bringing you all things you love too. thank you for the support over these last two years everyone. I can’t wait for what’s in store next!
If you have a free moment to fill out this form, I would absolutely love to hear from you. it's very short and asks a couple basic questions about why you pledged what you like about my patreon and if there's something you wish I offered.
https://forms.gle/u73nK6a5PaS3rbMW9
