I was not doing well in 2021.
There were many, many factors--the ongoing pandemic that I had thought, at first, didn't touch my life; the fact that both Justin and I were struggling with chronic illness flare-ups that we were just beginning to understand; a whole host of things that I'm sure I haven't even finished cataloguing and processing yet.
One of the worst things, though, was that I had hit a massive wall of burnout.
I'd struggled through 2020, sure. At some point early on in the year, I'd abandoned using my computer for anything more than the weekly video calls with my D&D group. That's when I got into fountain pens, because I desperately needed a way to create that removed from technology. I needed to work on something that didn't allow me on social media. I was an empathy sponge struggling with chronic illness anyway, and the horrible toxicity I began to experience on social media that year drained me of what precious little energy I had.
I wrote a fantasy-adventure book set in a world that me and three of my D&D friends had spent the last six months building. And entire book, written by longhand. I hadn't done that since my first novel, written way back when I was a young teen. It felt good to do that again. So I thought I could participate in NaNoWriMo...which then spectacularly crashed and burned halfway through.
(I picked back up on that story, though, last year.)
I've never done well with NaNo anyway...for some reason, in a year I was already struggling, I thought it would help. I'm not going to say it caused my burnout...but it definitely pushed me into it harder.
In 2021, I faced a weird, unsettling feeling. For the first time in my life, my creative well was bone-dry. I had nothing. (I once had a minor episode of burnout when I was a teenager, but it was very, very different--during that one, I still had the urge to write. My source of burnout came from multiple well-meaning--and some malicious--people in my life insisting I couldn't possibly feel like writing was a vocation, because God called women to only be mothers and homemakers. [insert vigorous eyeroll here] I struggled for six months before tossing their advice out the highest window I could find and going back to what gave me peace.) For the first time, writing wasn't a way for me to escape from the stress in my life--it was a source of stress.
I felt spiritually and mentally lost.
Not only that, but I felt like I was letting my readers down. I'd released the second book in my urban fantasy series in late 2019. I'd put the series aside to work on other things in 2020. And then, I vanished off the face of the earth in 2021. No social media posts, no newsletter. I let my website payments lapse.
My burnout lasted from early 2021, through mid 2022. There's several things that contributed to me getting my creative feet back under me, but I want to focus on one thing.
Video games.
Specifically, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Minecraft.
I've been a Zelda fan for many years. As a young teen, I played Ocarina of Time and spent years searching for another videogame like it. Eventually, I stopped playing videogames much, except for Wii Fit, and, when my husband and I began dating, Wii Sports and Ghost Recon. I'd played Minecraft: Pocket Edition briefly, on a Bedrock server some friends put together, but it had never really grabbed my attention (small wonder, given it was Pocket Edition on an iPhone 8.)
I talked my husband into getting a Nintendo Switch as a family gift in 2020, because I badly wanted to play the new Zelda game. We got it in early December, and I promptly spent a couple of weeks playing it on the sly, becoming totally immersed in the world of Breath of the Wild and marveling at the completely open playstyle. It had been a long time since I'd been so entranced by a video game. When we finally formally opened it as a family, my kids begged me to play through the game while they watched. This came shortly before my burnout, and this was my fantasy content for a good six months or so of my burnout. It kept me interested in fantasy.
Then, in late 2021, came Minecraft.
My two best friends used the power of story (specifically, the story of Third Life, a series by a bunch of YouTubers) to get me interested. They knew exactly what would snare me into a new obsession. Once they'd gotten me hooked (and I do mean hooked--there may have even been fanfiction involved, as this was the first thing that had sparked my creativity in the slightest in nearly a year), they told me that they were going to pick up a new. They wanted to do YouTube content, and had gathered together a small group of people who interested in doing a server together1. Making content was not required. And they had a story idea.
I quickly accepted. Now that I'd watched some Minecraft content and understood more about the building aspect of it, I was eager to try the game again. I threw myself into learning how to build castles and greenhouses, how to landscape, how to survive and play the game, how to support the story we were collectively building.
I've always loved collaborative storytelling--I've co-written multiple novels with friends, and I've played Dungeons & Dragons for eight years because of this aspect of it.
I believe this is partially what brought my creativity back. I learned how to build and tell a story in a different medium. Just like when I started watching Critical Role and playing D&D back in 2016, it forced me to see story in a different light, bound by a system of different rules that I had to learn and work around. Unlike writing and D&D, though, I had a representation of how much progress I was making. Sometimes, it's hard to know that you're making much progress in a story--at least, it is for me. But in Minecraft, it's easier to see that I still have half the build left, or that hill needs to be landscaped.
Why am I writing about this?
I've seen a lot of articles recently decrying videogames, the loss of creativity, and addiction.
I don't deny that that is true. There's certain a lot of games that lend themselves to little creativity, that are fast-paced and flashy with little substance. This is one of the reasons I tend to dislike mobile games, or many tablet games for kids. And--I will admit it--in the last few years as my kids and I have gotten more into videogames, we've had to deal with boundaries and being careful of addiction.
But I would argue that Zelda and Minecraft are not two of these games. Minecraft is not flashy and quick-paced. If anything, you need to take care and go slowly and have patience, because it sometimes can take a while to get to where you can survive. If you like building, like I do, you have to gather supplies, plan your build (and go through the cycle of 'die, retrieve gear, get back to work, die, retrieve gear', if you're anything like me). In Zelda, there are many difficult puzzles and monsters that require quick thinking and gear management as well.
I think it's a mistake to think of videogames as the enemy. I still play Minecraft regularly, and occasionally dabble in other videogames. It gives me yet another way to bond with my kids. (We are currently playing through Hogwarts: Legacy together.) There are times where my brain needs a break from writing, and that's when building another tower in my current solarpunk city brings me creative refreshment. It scratches a different itch than going on a walk with my dog or gardening or reading does, but it's become as crucial to my creative wellbeing as those activities have.
And yes, I have to practice self-restraint and self-discipline. I have to walk the balance of enjoying the game without becoming addicted. But this is true for many other things as well. And, in my view, while holding my kids to the same standards as I hold myself, I'm teaching them to self-discipline needed in life. I'd rather deal with an addiction to videogames, and teach them self-restraint and self-discipline with this topic, than have them get into something more destructive that then needs to be addressed with self-restraint and self-discipline.
It's been a strange battle--there have been times in the last few years that I've been tempted to toss all of our technology in the dumpster. It's not been an easy journey. And yet, I do think the videogames are something we're going to keep around. Used wisely, I think they help more than hinder.
That's a good principle for life anyway--'use wisely'.
If anyone else is interested in family friendly, roleplay-light Minecraft content, please check out my servermates from The Edge!