john?

he shivers, pulling the coat stronger on himself. all the alcohol in his veins almost made him forget to be outside in the middle of the winter night, but now he's starting to feel it again. his liquor stained breath condenses in the chilling air, looking like the smoke he can't have because he ran out of cigarettes. it's freezing. but he's not moving. his eyes wander up, to the apartment he's been sitting in front of. his old apartment. their old apartment.

johnny...

a silhouette moves behind the curtains. maybe someone going for a glass of water, maybe it's just his own imagination. or maybe a ghost. but who or whatever that is, it has the same silhouette of des. it stands near the window for a moment, stretches. then it's gone. maybe they got back to bed. like he used to do, when john would call him, sleepily lying there after the only truly restful nights of his life. he would call him, and des would lie down again, just a little longer. just for him. but john didn't do the same. no, he had to sacrifice the only man he truly cared about to save his stupid, pathetic life.

you drank again, didn't you?... i know. don't worry. i know it's not easy to stop. but you promised me, johnny.

he realizes he's crying only when he feels his tears getting colder in the freezing air. why did he think he could handle a normal life with des? why did he think he could even remotely have a right for such a life? to try and take it, he ended up taking des' too, and they both lost them. if only he could stay away from him, if only he could stop lying to himself, saying stupid things like i can do this, i can live with him, everything will be okay, everything will get fixed, des would still be his own person, he would be free. and instead, he had to try and take it. the normal life. the life that he was never meant to have. and he just can't stop hearing his voice, now.

don't worry. i'll help you. you'll do better next time.

and he's always so kind. so extremely kind. and he doesn't deserve it. he doesn't deserve him. he never did.

you promised me, johnny.

but i can't keep any promise.

kim seunghun♡soulmate!au

a/n: this took….WAY TOO LONG to finish. I apologize if this au is not as cohesive bc I did write it over the span of a few weeks lol. Thank you all for waiting so patiently and feel free to leave any requests as I will be free to write this weekend!!! mwah♡

so,, in this alternate universe exists the soulmate tattoo

yes, i know so creative ;w;

essentially, you are born with the name of your soulmate tattooed somewhere on your body

and you have the absolute pleasure of having the name kim seunghun tattooed in cursive across the expanse of your right hip

spicy ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

anyway,,, you’re kind of asjsdjkSAD

bc seunghun is such a common name??? and you’ve met so many seunghuns???

but NONE of them are your soulmate :((((

you would know,, considering u basically ripped a guys shirt off when he told u that yes, his name was kim seunghun but no, he did not have ur name on his hip

uhh but that’s a story for another day :,)

anyway,,, ur kinda bummed??

and it’s gotten to the point where you’ve almost lost all hope of finding him

。・°°・(＞_＜)・°°・。

but anyway ,, life goes on I guess

SO

you’re yedam’s older sister by about 3 years

( sorry forgot to mention that important detail )

you both go to the same high school!!!

ur a senior and he’s a FRESHIE

obviously,,, hes a BABY（≧∇≦）

so ur super protective of him

and when you find out he’s been hanging out with some ,, QUESTIONABLE individuals at school

mom mode: activated

“dammie who r these kids”

“MOM, we’re part of dance club together!! they’re super nice i promise”

＼＼\٩(๑`^´๑)۶//／／

u just want your baby to stay safe u know??

so when he asks to invite his friends over to practice

you’re like ( ˘ω˘ )

yedam: (◞‸◟)

you: (　˙-˙　)

sad yedam is a big fat NO in this household

so you have no choice but to agree

and as his unofficial mom, you decide to greet his friends !

“hi, i’m y/n! bang y/n!” ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

and like ,,,, you lowkey feel bad thinking his friends were bad bc most of the guys are pretty chill

like this byounggon kid??

the epitome of looks like he wants to kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll ( ^ω^ )

but when you get to the last dude ,,,

he just kinda ~looks~ at you

and ur not gonna lie … he’s HOT

like he’s only wearing a hoodie ,, but he has silver hoops lined along his ears,, and his hair just messily grazes across his forehead

you internally: *･゜ﾟ･*:.���..｡.:*･’(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)‘･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

uhhhh but also he’s staring u down like he wants to kill u

“i’m hun” he introduces himself coldly

(._.)

he still cute tho

so,,, it’s been a while and yedam has continued to bring his friends over to practice

and you’ve come to grow fond of the boys!!!

esp byounggon :,)))

you guys just click???

except,,,, there’s still a certain blonde haired boy who just doesn’t seem to like u???

like u were walking to ur class the other morning

and you just HAPPENED to see him

so u were like,,, hm let me be a nice person today(＾ｰ^)

so you run up to him and grab his shoulder

“hun!!! what’s up my guy!!” ( ＾∀＾)

honestly,, you went in to this thinking that the only thing hun would do is say hi back???

you: WRONG

he kind of freezes for a second

and you’re like???? u ok bud

he slowly turns around

and his eyes,,, literally pierce into yours

he gingerly takes your hand from its grip on your shoulder, letting it limply fall at your side

and then he slowly walks towards you until your back is pressed against the white brick wall of the hallway, his hands caging you in on either side of your head

slowly, he inches his face towards yours

“stop faking nice to me, we are not and will never be friends”

you internally: hnnngg why does he smell so nice???? is that bath and body works? since when did men shop at bath and body works??(΄◉◞౪◟◉｀)

you externally: HMPH how DARE U invade my personal bubble young man i won’t hesitate to FIGHT(● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭

and then he walks off

“FUCK YOU TOO HUN!!! I BET THAT’S NOT EVEN YOUR REAL NAME!! I HOPE U THINK ABOUT WHAT U DID WHEN U GO BACK HOME YOUNG MAN” ＼＼\٩(๑`^´๑)۶//／／

you are a BIG MAD

like??? who does this kid think he is???

you dont really bother talking to him much after that :///

but also ,, you hate yourself bc you’re still so ATTRACTED to him??? and u don’t even know why??? like bad personalities are such a turn off why ,,???

hmph

ANYWAY

so it’s a saturday night ,,

u know what that means…

party @ byounggon’s place ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

bc what’s a bullet point au w out a party am i right???

basically, gon’s parents were on vacation for the weekend, so he took the chance to have the party of the year

and after the stress of exam season, you’re ready to get SMACKED

lmao i do not support underage drinking kids!

uhhh anyway

this is your first party in a ,, while

so you dress yourself up in a red mini dress and some platform heels and strut your hot ass to gon’s house ;)

by the time you walked up to the house,, it was a full fledged RAGER 😤

so like one second,,, you’re just chilling, shaking your hips to some britney spears

and the next thing you know!! you’re downing your fifth shot of the night

“GON I THIBJK IM GONNA THROW UP”

gon: Σ('◉⌓◉’)

the next thing u know you’re in the bathroom bent over the toilet

(;´д｀)

thankfully,,, you don’t puke

but you do drink atleast five bottles of water and take a power nap on gon’s shoulder

anyway ,,, by the the time you’ve slightly sobered up, you realize your head kinda hurts and the party is still going strong but u promised gon you’d stay to clean up soooo

you end up going upstairs to NAP (ᵔᴥᵔ)

but when you open the door to the guest room at the end of the hall,,,

you just HAPPEN to see hun already there on the bed scrolling through his phone

＼＼\٩(๑`^´๑)۶//／／

this man rlly just knows how to push ur buttons huh

if you weren’t so tired maybe you would’ve taken the time to appreciate the way his leather jacket complimented his broad shoulders

like not 2 be rude but this bich looked hella good

but also ur tired :///

“what are YOU doing here”

hun finally looks up and notices you standing in the doorway

and he doesn’t say anything for a while

just kinda stares at you

and it takes you a while to realize that he’s lowkey checking you out

you wouldn’t admit it, but the way his eyes glazed over your form made a pit form in your stomach

finally he locks eyes with yours

“what do you mean what am I doing here, what are YOU doing here?”

he smirks and gets off the bed to step closer to you

“i WANTED to take a NAP but you just HAD to take the only room that doesn’t have people FUCKING” (● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭ꠥ⁾⁾

“well it’s not my fault you can’t handle your alcohol”

this BITCH

“can you PLEASE just leave”

“no”

you let out a sigh of frustration and square your hands on your hips

“why do you hate me so much”

“i never said i hated you”

“well the way you act sure makes it seem like you do” you huff

hun cocks his head a little and steps closer to you

suddenly, it seems like the idea of personal space is almost nonexistant

you look up at him

and u notice the way his hooded eyes rest on your lips

and how the air around you both has suddenly gotten heavier

and you feel your body heating up

and you realize that maybe,,, you’re not so tired anymore

“well how about i prove to you that i don’t”

hun’s voice has reached a whisper, his lips only centimeters from yours

and suddenly he’s kissing you

and you’re kissing back

perhaps it’s because you’re not completely sober that you don’t notice the way his touch burns your hip

and if you do, you ignore it

the softness of his lips against yours almost makes you feel drunk again

and the next thing you know, he’s taking off your shirt, hands finding their way to the curve of your waist

as your lips make their way down his neck, you allow yourself to do the same to him

( you wish you didn’t do that )

because as you push his shirtless body against the bed, you can’t help but notice the cursive scrawl lining his right hip

and in that moment, it feels as if you’ve never been more sober in your life

you’re frozen, eyes resting on his hip

and maybe hun, or should we now say seunghun, is not as sober as he seems, considering it takes him a while to track down the path of your eyes

and when he finally does, his heart drops in his chest

he reaches out to grasp some part, any part, of you

but you flinch away

“y/n…. this isn’t what you think it is”

his eyes are pleading you to stay and listen to him

you let out a harsh laugh

“no, no this is EXACTLY what i think it is”

“y/n please don’t -“

and suddenly you’re untangling yourself from the bed sheets, haphazardly throwing your shirt on and slamming the door behind you  

and in that moment you realize that maybe soulmates aren’t as perfect as the world makes them out to be

so the rest of the weekend is spent in your bed,,, wrapped up in ur sheets like a burrito

you don’t really cry much

you’re just ,,, confused

having the idea that your soulmate knew you were his soulmate but never told you, and better yet, acts like he hates you??

(◞‸◟)

yedam: y/n, why have u been laying in bed all day (● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭ꠥ⁾⁾

you: ;w;

and as much as dammie wants to talk to you, he has more emotional intelligence than most guys his age (or guys in general tbh)

so he pats your back, makes two bags of popcorn, puts kimi no na wa on his laptop and gets under the covers beside you

it isn’t until the end of the movie when the last of your tears have dried on your face that you look up at him with puffy eyes

“dammie, i found my soulmate”

yedam: Σ('◉⌓◉’)

“it’s not that big of a deal… i don’t think he  wants me anyway”

by the time you reach the end of the sentence, your voice falls into a whisper

perhaps you would like to believe seunghun wanted you

but some things don’t turn out the way we believe

“why would u say that” yedam looks down at you, brows furrowed in worry

“uhh, i mean -“

“WAIT … who even is your soulmate??”

you:👀🍵

“it’s … hun”

“W H A T”

and that, my friends, is how yedam realized u can’t trust people in this world :/

so it’s monday

and as you brush your teeth, you can’t help but feel uneasy knowing that you could possibly see seunghun today

thankfully you don’t

but when it’s finally nighttime and you’re making your way under your covers ,,,

unknown: y/n, open your window

unknown: i’m outside and it’s cold

unknown: this is seunghun btw…

you on the outside: what the FUCK

you on the inside: i’m literally wearing basketball shorts how am i supposed to see my soulmate like this (O_O)

and when you pull back your curtains and open your window, you are met with none other than kim seunghun barreling into your room

“how long were you out there??” (● ˃̶͈̀ロ˂̶͈́)੭ꠥ⁾⁾

“uhhh maybe an hour or so” m(._.)m

and perhaps it’s the motherly side of you that decides to pull his face down and cup his cheeks in your hands in an attempt to warm him up

and you don’t really notice how close you’ve gotten to him until you look down and realize his lips are only centimeters from yours

but when seunghun’s lips form into a little smirk at your obviously flustered state, you quickly retract your hands

“i’m sorry…”

you don’t really make a move to respond to seunghun, choosing to stare at the floor instead

“I know what i did was stupid … and i should have told you from the start… but i’ve had bad experiences in the past with soulmates and i didn’t know if -“

“that doesn’t matter, you should have just told me that you didn’t want me in the first place instead of making me feel this way”

you’re a bit pissed off now

that this dude thinks he has the right to act like that and then barge into your room??

but when you take the time to look up at him

his eyes have softened

and he moves a step closer to you

“i do want you though”

… “ w h a t “

“then why have you acted so rude to me?? when you obviously knew i was your soulmate from the start, why did you hide it??”

now seunghun is the one looking down at his hands

and he looks so defeated, before he opens his mouth

“i’m scared”

you look up at him, but he’s still looking down at his hands

“my dad rejected my mom when he found out they were soulmates. i don’t think … he wanted to deal with the commitment of having a soulmate. he thought they were stupid. so he rejected her and he went off to do whatever the hell he’s doing right now. he went off and he abandoned my mom with two year old me and we haven’t heard from him since.”

a single tear drops from his eyes

and you move a step closer and wrap your arms around him

he’s frozen for a second but he hugs you back

and you both stay there for a while, you rubbing his back in an attempt to calm him down

“i won’t ever leave you seunghun”

he pulls back

and despite his red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks, he cups your face with his cold finger tips and kisses you

and you kiss him back

Any motivation or advice for one man team developers? Sorry if this has been asked already

Hey! I’ve been working on a solo fangame project for too long almost 3 years, while working on The BOSS & Glitch In The System. I have no clue if this’ll help or if this is the type of advice you wanted, but here you go. The things written here can apply to non-fangame projects, too! 

(Warning: lots of text ahead - and take this with a grain of salt; I’m not an expert.)

General: 

You are going to have to plan in advance and organize absolutely every single thing about your project. Don’t just make an outline for your story. Create concept art for your characters, figure out what makes your game story unique, figure out the mapping and game mechanics early.

Make sure you know your options. If you’re really good at one thing (writing,art,music,code) and everything else is a bit new to you, there are free and paid resources out there. Don’t feel bad for using them. 

If you’re a perfectionist, make sure the tools you use are quick. Do not spend a week on one room design, or a month on one song. You will never finish your game, even if it’s super short. 

Kinda joykill advice, but I don’t recommend making your dream project first unless you fully KNOW how to start making your project on your own (which even then, you’ll need to organize everything for it to work). Make something silly, or try joining game jams. 

External feedback is even more important when working on your game. Get playtesters or people willing to help give feedback to you early on, or midway through development. 

Figure out how much energy you can devote to your project. If you want to be ambitious, that’s great! But overworking yourself is a horrible idea. 

If you want to change something fairly major about your game, you should probably only do it if you’re below the 30-40% mark. Otherwise you’ll forever drive yourself insane by changing anything when you’ve made that much progress on your project. You can always improve on certain aspects for future games. 

Especially for fangames: don’t take everything you make seriously. 

Games can still be considered solo projects, even if the developers got help for stuff like art, music, and code. You don’t have to do every single thing by yourself. But if you’re stubborn like me about this and still want to do everything, that’s cool too.

Back up your game or forever suffer in developer hell. Yes, I’m serious. I’ve seen projects get cancelled because they couldn’t afford to get a backup drive (or even a USB key) and it’s miserable.

Don’t act like you’re above other game developers. This applies for anyone, really. Support the other people around you, too! 

Visuals:

If you have absolutely no passion or desire to do your own art assets, premade resources are your friends. However, you need to really focus on your other game aspects in other for your games to stand out. To The Moon used a lot of pre-made RPG Maker XP resources but had a phenomenal soundtrack and used that + its visuals to make the game feel more cinematic than most RPG Maker games.

If you feel like you suck at art or don’t have money for expensive drawing tools, but want to make all of the game assets, then do it! Even with simple/free-to-use tools, your can make game art that’ll be unique and memorable. example / example / example 

Keep backups of every single one of your original art asset files.

If you want to do pixel art for your game, 1: Always avoid coloring with pure black. Your game will look disgusting. 2: Programs like Asesprite are useful for animations. 3: Make sure it’s proper pixel art. Using AA brushes, the blur tool (etc) will completely ruin that.

Video cutscenes aren’t 100% necessary. Certain game devs make it a goal to never include cutscenes to create a certain atmosphere, or for the game to feel more interactive for the player. (ex: Night In The Woods)

Pretend the player can’t listen to game audio while playing. Keep the visuals interesting and make your game feel alive! Whether it’s through tiny animations, window animations, etc. 

For 3D Games: motion blur =/= super cool polished game. >:(

It depends on your game’s style, of course, but usually it’s not a good sign if you can tell your project is made by someone with default assets and doesn’t try to work beyond that (for any engine, 2D or 3D). 

If you want to do regular art for your game: make sure you know what resolution your game is going to be at its absolute highest, and always work with bigger than that. 

Keep your visuals consistent! If an early area looks unpolished/different from the final maps, then fix it. 

I’m going to skip music advice because I 100% suck at composing and don’t know what I’m doing yet. Just make sure your audio files are lossless, even if it adds a bit to your game’s file size. 

Audio: 

Use the same logic like in one of the points for visuals: Pretend like the player can’t see any of your cool visuals or fancy animations, and is just left with blocks for character sprites and very shapes for maps. Make your game convey emotion through audio, even if it’s through tiny sounds, or really quiet environment sounds. 

Voice acting: Don’t even bother if you can’t find people who have good microphones or can’t afford/know how to properly remove background noise. You’ll just be left with really bad quality audio that won’t help immerse the player at all. 

There can be a theme to your audio, much like there can be a theme to your visuals. Whether or not you decide to contrast the visuals with your audio or pair them up is up to you. It can give the game a whole new tone, depending on how you approach sound design.

Audio cues are good for puzzles, but again, don’t just rely on that only to indicate to the player that an objective has been completed. If they have the game on mute, they’re just going to be left wandering around.

Binaural audio can be cool, if you want to try doing that. 

Writing: 

Don’t write game dialogue at 4 am. It never works. 

Game writing is VERY different from what you might be used to. Keep in mind that for the most part players want to interact with an environment, not just only hear what characters have to say about a certain event or area. Forcing them to go through giant dialogue cutscenes every time is not a smart move to make. (Obviously, visual novels and text adventure games are an exception to this)

Not that you only need to have 4 words in your entire game! But there is a chance someone will download your game and just not enjoy the writing. Think ahead of time if you really feel like every game puzzle, every important cutscene needs to happen after giant walls of text.

If you have the ability to make visuals that can be paired with writing, you don’t really have an excuse for avoiding that. Especially if the cutscene 

Proofread every single thing, or get someone else to do it. If you can export all your game dialogue into text files, that could be helpful. 

If you’re trying to write a serious game (with lighthearted moments or not), chances are that adding that one dumb inside joke with your friends in-game could ruin the immersion for the player.

Only time I think the developer should focus more on their own opinion than the players: create as much atmosphere as you can. Figure out the things YOU like about a game world, and focus on that as much as you can. Don’t worry about making it appeal to all/certain audiences. 

Don’t act like every single player in the world will like all of your characters. Even if they’re nice, someone could absolutely despise your main characters, or find themselves liking the antagonist more.

Dumb character ticks and speech mannerisms can still work.

Not everything about a Serious Game™ has to be gritty and all that. Me and Katie wouldn’t recommend making a completely serious fangame anyway, but that’s another topic. 

You’re probably not going to ever write a game that has absolutely no tropes in it whatsoever, so give up on that. 

You can make a character dislikeable but still charming. The other way around works too. Not everything has to be clear-cut right and wrong.

Game design / Programming: 

If you ever use shortened names for certain switches, variables, etc - or have a complex system for one game feature, write down what all of it does somewhere. You don’t want to screw yourself over months after you implemented something because you forgot what one button does, or what another variable is for. 

Bite the bullet. If there’s an area you restrict access to for the player purely for the sake of not having to deal with coding it, that’s no fun.

You can never make a game with endless options/possibilities.

If there’s something buggy in your absolute basic gameplay mechanics (movement, UI) just change it and don’t focus on anything else before it’s fixed. There’s no excuse not to.

Make sure your game UI is bearable to look at. Please.

You don’t have to add 50 game options or features for your game to stand out. Unless you know it’ll encourage the player to keep playing or will help the player enjoy the game, then there’s no real use for it.

If you can ever optimize your game (frame rate, controls, etc) do that too. Having a simple 2D game running at 15fps one second and 60 the other won’t make your players happy. 

Personally, I’d rather play a working puzzle even if it’s a bit boring, over something that’s super creative but buggy as hell. 

Color puzzles aren’t going to work for colorblind players, and if you have an aesthetic (super tiny) game font, people with bad eyesight won’t be able to play. Give people options! 

“Choices in this game matter” if you know they don’t matter whatsoever for the ending or for a majority of the game, then don’t say that. This also ties into the branding section.

Making band-aid fixes for every single one of your game bugs is a really bad idea. If you can take some time to fix one bug fully rather than relying on workarounds, do that. 

Back. Up. Your. Code. Files. Especially if you’re planning on making major changes to it. It can be very useful to have old pieces of code to fall back on if your changes don’t work as planned. 

Figure out what you can and can’t do with an engine. There’s a section in The Beginner’s Guide that talks about the limitations certain engines can pose to developers, and how certain engines are just better fit for certain tasks than others. You won’t be able to include or make everything for one project. (Chances are, that wouldn’t work well anyways). 

Don’t expect the player to only behave one way to your game’s design, puzzles, or mapping. Again, give people options. There can be some fun in giving the player different results for different puzzle solutions. 

Presentation: 

You don’t have to reveal every single thing about your project online-  but on the other hand, keeping everything to only vague/abstract teaser posts isn’t very helpful to people, either. 

Social media is your friend. Twitter, tumblr, youtube, etc- Find different audiences through your games there! 

Figure out what sites you want to put your game on. There are tons of options: Itch.io is my favorite. But sites like Gamejolt, indiedb, rmn.net, Steam (more for commercial games), etc can work for you. You can always just upload it for yourself online (mediafire, google drive, dropbox) too, if you dislike all of those sites or prefer doing it through direct download links. 

Don’t self promote your game on other people’s games or accounts…

Even if someone is hoping to see something really specific in your game, your project will get out of hand if you just add in what every single person wants. Convince people that your game will be worthwhile even if a feature or a character doesn’t appear in it. 

Remaining transparent with your audience will help you a lot.

Keep things easy to access and read/look at for potential players. Make sure people can find something about the game quick. Things like FAQs, “About this game”, external links, etc are very helpful. 

Apologies in advance for any embarrassing typos that I may have missed.  

One last thing: Focus on making something that you ultimately like. It’ll be much easier to handle any sort of obstacles during/after development that way.

There is so much more I want to cover on this, but this should give you some basic things to work with. Hope this helps!

20 things I learned in 2020

1. The only certainty in life is uncertainty.

This is obviously true in the case of, you know, a global pandemic, but even moreso is the way this permeates every aspects of our life on earth. Fundamentally, nothing in certain. No time has ever been ‘precedented’. This year was a reminder of that, but so was clerkship in general. Every month, every new rotation forced me to confront the difficulties I had managing uncertainty. As a person who needs to know EVERYTHING at all times, I was forced to accept that I simple could not know it all in these clinical scenarios. This doesn’t mean it made it any easier to deal with - I still get pretty anxious the night before a new rotation, but I certainly deal with it easier than before. 

2. Ask for help.

Ask and so you shall receive! Why stumble around the hospital by yourself, sweating anxiously and checking your watch nervously as the minutes tick by closer to when you’re supposed to be at X or Y destination, when you can ask someone who is (in my experience - literally always) willing to help? Now, I stride in and ask the first person I see where I can find what I am looking for. People want to help - you just need to ask. Whether its for finding something or letting someone you can confide in know that you’re struggling - ask.

3. You are what you do every day. 

Aristotle said it best, so I won’t mince his words. What we spend our time doing each day reflects what is valuable and important to us. This year, for the first time in my life, I began to work out for myself and made it a habit. I wasn’t doing it to lose weight, to participate on a team, or for any other reason than for me. I noticed myself get stronger, happier, feel better. I made it a habit to the point where when I don’t do it, I feel off. I didn’t think this was something that was possible for me - rather, that I was destined to a life of just not being an exercise person. But here’s the thing - everyone is and can be an exercise person. You just have to be doing it for the right reasons - for wanting to move your body in a meaningful way each day because thats what makes it feel right. I hope to come to love my body and all it does for me in the coming years. I would lie to say that I love and am truly accepting of it right now, because I know I am not. But I do know that I am treating it a whole lot better than I ever have before.

4. Be vulnerable/STOP PEOPLE PLEASING

Holy fuck --- this !!!!!!!! You do not need to have it all figured out. You do not need to pretend that you are unphased by things or that you are the ~chill~ girl. This does not benefit anyone, and it certainly does not benefit yourself. People want honesty. They want to know how you’re feeling. All you do by shutting that away is harbor negativity and resentment that end up exploding later. I was taught to hide these emotions growing up for whatever reason - shame, embarrassment, whatever - but I will stop doing this. You cannot begin to unpack the why of how you are feeling, and try to achieve more, if you don’t do this. You should be open and raw - tell people why you love them (like when you messaged people you felt grateful for over twitter and facebook last summer) or why you felt badly about things (like you did in your relationship). You deserve to be heard.

5. Take a walk.

The power of going for a walk to clear your headspace and give you time away was truly found this year. Nature is grounding. Fresh air feels like it lifts the weight off your chest. Spend time outdoors - don’t feel badly if you cant - and breathe deeply. Feel the earth against your feet as you propel forward and deal with emotions. Whether it was 5 minutes between virtual clinics or 5 hours walking around when you were upset and in an argument with Felipe, taking a walk was the answer.

6. People like people that they like.

This year, in clerkship, I learned that it is not always important to be the smartest or wisest or wittiest. You dont even have to be smart, wise or witty. You just have to be trying, responsible, likable. A good team player. On most days, being just me, at my baseline, was more than enough. I think this year I realized that I am likeable (or affable) as one of my strengths. It was the CL psych nurses (Karen telling me “you are a star” on my last day and making me tear up on my walk down the hill back to my car parked on Strachlan), or it was the R3 on gen surg (”you have a good energy”) or whoever else. Not necessarily things or fields I knew the most about, but just who I am. And that was nice to hear. Stop the imposter syndrome - you are enough.

7. Non-fiction books can be enjoyable.

Fiction is still better, but there is lots to be learned in a good non fiction.

8. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

You bawled your eyes out on your birthday morning, at Felipe’s house on James. You sat on the balcony and couldn’t control all the tears that wanted to come out. It was blackout tuesday, and where was the validation that your year MEANT something if it wasn’t shown via birthday posts on instagram? More than this, people ARE DYING IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, SARA. And even moreso than that, you were flooded with, dare I say, WHITE GUILT that this was the way you were feeling in the midst of pronounced racial, civil unrest. For the first time, I think you were really confronted - every day, for weeks - with the fact that you were white. You knew this before, of course, but this was blaring at you from every angle, even on your fucking birthday. And here’s the thing - things will never go bac to the way they were, when you were afforded the privilege of being blissfully ignorant and unaware of your race. When it wasn’t something you had to think about, at all, because you were obviously part of the majority and benefiting from your race in innumerable ways each and every day. We’re not going back there. The only way forward is through. Get over your guilt, we’ve got shit to do.

9. External vs. Internal validation

I think this year you really realized how much you depend on external validation to feel valued and confident. I wish for you to see in the coming years how much more you are than just what people tell you. You are bold, brilliant, confident, clever and strong because you are - not because others tell you so. 

10. Recognizing my emotional dysregulation 

This year, I became a lot more aware of the fact that I emotionally dysregulate and have extreme tempers or profound sadness with a baseline of general bubbly/contentment/joy. Now, it’s going to be all about managing it...

11. Envy/comparison is a thief of joy.

12. You’ll never know if you don’t try.

I am proud of all the ways in which you put yourself out there this year and applied to things. You got rejected - a lot. Whether it was awards and scholarships (OMA ambassador, all the general scholarships through MacMed) or leadership opportunities (where to begin? OMSA day of action lead or even being part of the OMSA day of action), or the million times you vowed that you would not apply for Ontario Regional Director. There were so many times that week you wanted to quit - to not write a script, to not attend a zoom session, to pull out even when you just saw the competition - but you didn’t. You learned a lot, you practiced giving a zoom speech, and you chatted with some interesting people. You lost the election, but you personally did not lose anything. While at that time it was a tough pill to swallow, here you are. Now you have more time to dedicate to your YWCA partnership, and isn’t that a beautiful thing after all?

13. Stop putting things off - do them right away!

Still working on it lol.

14. Popcorn

15. Being a good friend/girlfriend/daughter is a skill. 

Noone ever tells you, I feel, that having strong, close relationships is hard work. You can’t just sit idly by. You also can’t expect that giving a gift or saying some nice words is enough. Especially in a year of social distancing - you had to get creative. Face times, flowers delivered, watching netflix simultaneously on the extension with Felipe (money heist anyone?), zoom hang outs, picnics at Oakville lakeshore, scheduling monthly hang outs with Sharon.. relationships are about making the time and investing into it like you would with anything else. You don’t necessarily have to be doing fancy things like this either - but emotional intimacy is important and necessary, too.

16. If you’re not doing it because you love it, it won’t give you any contentment.

All the extracurriculars in the world don’t matter if they dont make you tick. 

17. The opportunity for learning/gratitude is everywhere.

Whether its from patients sitting right in front of you (listen to them, always), podcasts, or anywhere else. There are opportunities to learn all around you. Likewise, there are always, ALWAYS things to be grateful for. Take a moment to pause and think about what you learned or are grateful for in a day. There is always something.

18. You’re actually really good at procedures.

Why did you think you weren’t? Were you indoctrinated to believe that only men were good with their hands? Regardless... don’t be nervous. You’re good at them!

19. Routine, good nights of sleep are not overrated. Not at all. 

20. Residents are the unsung heroes of the medical student experience. They make or break a rotation, and influence it more than any other factor. Future Sara you better be a fucking good resident to your med students.

Honourable mention goes to this awesome moment this year that I almost forgot happened, but thankfully tweeted about - “No better way to spend International Women’s Day than on the Labour & Delivery floor witnessing the strength, power & tenacity of mama’s in labour! First delivery of the day - unmedicated () with a beautiful baby girl joining the world!”

Another honourable mention to coming together with a fun crew to create COVIDreview, which unexpectedly got lots of media attention and praise but, most of all, was a fun way to get to know people in my class that I didn’t normally speak to.

On other notes, I will cherish the fact that I got to spend 3 months in my parents home with them for the first time in many, many years. We watched movies, did yoga, baked (a LOT), and went for many, many, repetitive walks. I love them more than words can describe and cannot imagine a life without my parents (and my brother). My family is everything.

I am also very appreciate to be in a relationship with Felipe that is constantly pushing me to be better and to recognize things about myself I didn’t know (or didn’t want to know). These things sometimes upset me, but ultimately I recognize they are important for my growth and leading me into becoming more of who I want to be. I am learning so much about myself, what I need and want in a partner, and how to communicate more effectively to convey these things (versus not communicating this at all in the past). Things aren’t always easy but I cherish the moments that happened this year (starting the year off travelling Arizona with him, meeting his sister/niece/nephew, him meeting my family, coming to Blue Mountain, going on an impromptu trip to Niagara, all the biking expeditions, going to Stratford for his birthday!!). I also must (MUST!!!!!) stop comparing my relationships to others. 

Overall, I find it ironic that the year marked by a GLOBAL PANDEMIC is the year where I was finally forced to stop, pause, and prioritize my health. My physical health, in building a habit for fitness that finally stuck, my emotional health in learning to recognize what I want in relationships and *starting* to ask for it/be vulnerable, and my mental health in taking the time for sleep, walks, and meditation (sometimes more than others). Lets continue to take these lessons into 2021. 

Okay. Lemme talk about depression and anxiety (or any other mental illness that is applicable), medication, and recovery for a second. About the fear that you will lose everything that you are if you find a path to recovery that works. About the fear that the effects of medication are somehow false or not you. About how hard it is to commit to a treatment plan when all of this is buzzing in your head.

I’ll add in a read more when I can get on my computer.

I am, of course, by no means a doctor. I’m a fricken high school senior, but I have been dealing with my depression and anxiety with the help of various doctors for four years. Four years ago, I mentioned anxiety to a doctor during routine and left the office with a tentative diagnosis of generalized anxiety and chronic depression and more appointments. I never realized that what I was feeling, mood wise, wasn’t normal until then. Three years ago, was put on Prozac, my first medication. It helped for a while because it helped me sleep, but after about a month it made everything worse because my energy was so high that my anxiety was nearly doubled. Then they put me on Celexa, which did nothing. This is when I started worrying about my identity and what recovery would actually mean. I mean, I was a freshman edgelord at the time, so everything was even more dramatic than it should have been already. I was also dealing with increasingly intense daydreams that got darker and stronger the more depressed I got. That summer, o stopped taking the Celexa because no one was listening when I told them that it wasn’t working and I felt empty. Of course, three months on an antidepressant is not enough to get a proper handle on a medication or a good idea of how it affects you, but remember that I was an impatient edgelord. That November, I had a meltdown. I wasn’t on medication, my external support system collapsed, and that aligned with an extreme depressive episode and I turned inward. I blew up at the daydreams I had, pushing them away too. Left in a panic, alone in my house, I unearthed the last of my Celexa and took all of it. Some 40 odd pills. Long story short, I spent a couple days in a children’s hospital. That was a turning point for me. I switched schools, lost contact with what friends I had, and wandered into a new life. Two years ago, I was put on Venlafaxine. This is when I tell you how to know when a med does NOT work. Venlafaxine had no marked improvement in the ~two years that I took it, which really isn’t a diss because that happens with psychiatric medications. It’s hit and miss because everyone’s brain is different and will react to meds different. What IS cause for distress is that it made me so exhausted that I couldn’t do anything. My grades slowly started to drop. I couldn’t do anything outside of school because I was just SO TIRED. Pro tip: if a medication is working, this will not happen. The whole point of an antidepressant is to ease the side effects of depression in order to allow you to be you. Obviously, they don’t cure anything, they just allow your brain to produce the hormones that they aren’t producing enough of already. January 2016, I started telling my doctors that the medication wasn’t helping. That it was making me tired, that it wasn’t making me feel better, that I was dying inside because I just couldn’t live like that anymore. They took blood tests, told me to take it at different times of the day, told me to take a slew of vitamins, told me to go on daily walks. I did all of this, nothing helped. No one listened. I remained on the useless pill for another 10 months. I ended up having to stop taking them on my own. For anyone who has never been on Effexor, it has some of the worst withdrawal symptoms of any antidepressants. Muscle spasms, emotional imbalance, weakness, more fatigue. Even with these symptoms, I felt better of the damn thing than on it. That said IT WAS VERY BAD AND SERIOUSLY IT IS NOT GOOD TO STOP TAKING YOUR MEDS SUDDENLY WITHOUT A DOCTOR’S APPROVAL. I was really lucky that nothing serious happened I could have had another major depressive episode. I could have had a bad physical reaction. Don’t do it. It really isn’t safe. I did not ever want to get on an antidepressant again. But about a month and a half ago, I started seeing a new doctor who put me on an older medication, Wellbutrin. For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m a writer. Or, I used to be. I hadn’t written anything that I liked or enjoyed making in three years. The creativity was just gone. Even when I had the things in my head, it was impossible to put it into words and then put those words on paper. And now we’re back to recovery, and the fear that comes along with it. The fear that we will lose ourselves if we do recover. This is obviously not universal, but I have been SO scared that I would lose an integral part of my personality if my mental illness wasn’t a part of it. When I got off the medication that didn’t work, I was able to socialize more and do after school activities, but I was still having suicidal thoughts nearly everyday and I could feel myself being weighed down by all of it. My mood is better than it has been since elementary school on this new medication. I’ve had energy. I’ve felt like I’m living. I’ve made sarcastic comments about my depression and realized when I said them that they aren’t true anymore. And I’m writing. I forgot what it’s like to write. To enjoy writing, to have the words flow smoothly from my mind to the paper like a fucking river. The apprehension and joy of having people read it. I forgot how much I love writing. I forgot how green the trees can be and how much I love the rain. I forgot how the sun feels on my back. I forgot how beautiful the early morning is and how wonderful it is to spend time with friends. I forgot what it means to feel something so strongly that it brings tears to my eyes without it being bad. I forgot how much I love being alive. I forgot a lot of things because I couldn’t see it under the fog. I’m not cured, of course, obviously, I still have to push past my depression everyday, but it is so much easier. I wouldn’t be here without that medication. I feel like a different person. And that’s because this is a glimpse of the person that I am without depression. This is a glimpse of who I can be, and it is so bright. I haven’t lost a single thing about who I am. I still love the same things, but I can actually enjoy them without having to use them as a distraction from that awful weight on my back. I walk out of my house in the morning and I don’t wish that I could stay home, not genuinely at least. And I’m writing. Obviously, it isn't the same for everyone, but. Think of every single thing that you love to do but just can’t ever force yourself to do. Think of the things that you used to look at and see beauty in that just look tired or gray now. Think of everything that you know you want to do again. Think of the books you used to love. The things you can create or enjoy and just think about them. That is what is under your depression. There isn’t an empty or bare person there. There is you, the person that is screaming everyday to be free if only your brain would let them.

You aren’t losing anything: you’re finding it.

10 Questions Tag

I genuinely don’t recall seeing this tag game come in, but either I missed it or I didn’t tag my responses. Either way, I found it again today, so @elizabethsyson thanks for the tag, here’s my answers

1. What book/s made you want to write?

I don’t think it was a book necessarily. Fanfiction inspired me to write and publish fanfiction of my own, but previously, I would just concoct something equivalent to fanfiction even though I didn’t know it had a name, entertain myself with it without ever writing it down, and then eventually forget and move on to something else. But I’ve always used those same unwritten (though still primarily verbal) creative endeavors as a way to process emotions. Later, writing (original fiction that was more individual scenes with no plot resolution) served the same purpose, and now fanfiction serves the dual purpose of being an emotional outlet (those don’t necessarily ever get published) and being a fun and social thing to share with other fans.

On the other hand, I’ve got so many memories of having written stories above and beyond what a school assignment would call for, going at least as far back as second or third grade, so who knows, maybe one book in particular did inspire me to write. But if so, I don’t remember what that original inspiration was.

Also there’s one book in particular that’s just... Awful. I bought it at a dollar store and honestly no wonder it was only selling there. Worst book I’ve ever read. And sometimes I’m writing out of spite because if something with that many plot holes and “plot twists” that ignore any foreshadowing the author set up and come out of literally nowhere can get published, then I’m also definitely good enough to get published if I ever wanted to.

2. What is your favourite genre to write in?

Fanfiction is totally its own genre, right? Besides that, the gray area where fantasy, urban fantasy, and realistic contemporary fiction all meet. I tend towards realism, even when I write magic, but I love to write in universes where mythical creatures can be real, too. It’s my favorite genre to write in because it’s where I’m comfortable writing, and also because those tend to be the stories I enjoy reading and therefore know how my own contributions compare. Also because I love worldbuilding, and being in a fantasy universe not so different from our own gives me plenty of space to explore exactly what’s the same or different and why.

3. What is your favourite genre to read?

Fanfiction again, because I can explore an arbitrary character through hundreds of different lenses and poke at all the facets of their identity almost indefinitely, and it’s not restricted to what happens to be plot relevant, or even to scenarios that are all compatible with a single timeline, and it’s so character driven. It’s by far my favorite thing. Fantasy, primarily in two different flavors. On one hand, fuzzy rules of magic where everything goes as long as the magic user is powerful or creative enough, as a backdrop to an allegorical, easily divided black and white morality story is a category I almost always love. Magic can do basically anything, and it’s easy to know what’s right and wrong, and who to root for. On the other hand, I love what Brandon Sanderson would call “hard magic” fantasy, where magic is just as structured, and nearly as understood, as science, which I enjoy combined with a plot in which the characters have as much nuance and shades of gray as in the real world. I tend to prefer things at one of those extremes, but I’ll read almost any fantasy story.

4. How do you think your reading habits have influenced your writing style?

I mean it's just like verbal language: whatever I surround myself is going to shape the ideas and phrases and slang that come back out of my brain. Likewise, if I’m creating a magic system “from scratch” it’s inevitably shaped by things I read or watched young(ish), including but not limited to the Belgariad, and Star Wars and Pern (so basically, strongly connected to the mind and limited mainly by what you can imagine) (the Dresden Files and Good Omens seem to have pretty similar ideas about magic, but I ingested those much later)

on the other hand I think that my habit of primarily reading, even over watching shows or movies, has contributed to how little I ever actually think about what a character looks like, except occasionally when introductions get delayed for some reason and I can't use names in narration. So characters I only know from reading, I have zero idea what they look like. For example, I only remember that Sabriel is deathly pale as her default state because I reread the beginning of the book recently on Libby (a library app) while debating whether to check it out and reread the whole series in order to potentially write a crossover fanfiction. Her appearance was mentioned once or twice in the first few chapters and then never again, and it wasn’t something other characters often remarked upon, so I promptly forgot. Even though it’s absolutely fitting. Idk I’m just really not a visual thinker apparently, and always having character names to reference only reinforces that because why do I need to know what someone looks like if I know who they are?

5. What is your go-to cure when you get writer’s block or can’t focus?

Focus is easier. I make sure I’ve eaten, and I put on music so I’m not distracted by the silence or by the sound of my own typing. Plus I'll keep something cold and caffeinated in arms reach to sip on when I'm tempted to relinquish focus.

Writer’s block is harder to overcome and usually ties in with depression, so I’ll sometimes go months without writing and come back when I have energy for anything again... But in terms of actual strategies, sometimes rereading what I’ve already written will kickstart my unblocked writing, which is why I try very hard to only stop writing at “stopping points” if it’s genuinely the end of the story. Because when I come back later, it’s so much easier to read a partial chapter, get into the swing of it, and remember where it was going, than to start carving a new chapter out of nothing. Another thing that helps chip away at writer’s block is to talk to someone who is enthusiastic about my stories, or who is willing to let me infodump. Those are the only two things I can really control that have helped. Occasionally other things will help, like getting the book review style comments on fics (when I also have time to sit down and write while the comment is still new enough to make me surprised-and-happy over it), or if I can find the right balance of “obligation to someone else” and “not so much pressure I implode” (like, for example, I submitted a half-baked WIP to the recent WIP Blind Date event, and the afternoon after we got our assignments I started getting motivated to add to what I’ve posted about it to have something “worth” sharing for the event, and even though I didn’t get the momentum going enough to make progress until after I’d already been reviewed, I made a large amount of progress on that fic just because there was some amount of external pressure.... But that only works if I only do it to myself occasionally. Too often and I’m just annoying everyone by asking them to expect something from me and never following through.)

6. Why did you decide to start writing?

I think I got the right amount of compliments and encouragement when I was in elementary school, on writing assignments and challenges, then I was proud of the original stories I was writing in middle school, and then in high school I figured out that I could create barely-not-me characters and put them through things I wished (or feared) would happen to me and explore the consequences... My depression started getting bad around then, and with it came executive dysfunction and I started having to focus only on schoolwork and still barely finished everything I needed to. I might have stopped writing for longer but then I started publishing fanfiction. initially because my brain was generating it anyway, and I was in a shitty living situation with nothing else to do with my free time that I spent hidden away in my room besides actually type it up, but I kept at it because I was proud of my stories again, and because of the social aspect. And now I continue writing because I love the excuse to explore characters, or just because I can put characters I already love into new and interesting situations.

I might eventually write my own original novel, just because being on writeblr and seeing everyone else writing original works is super motivating, but that requires I have ideas for a setting and a plot and for characters all at once and I’m trying not to force it.

7. Pick a character you’ve written/are writing. What personality trait of theirs defines them most?

I’m going to cheat and peek a bit in the future to when I’m actually writing that fic featuring Julie Kwan, because I ought to have a better handle on her before I get too much further. She’s got a very sharp mind, very good at logical deductions (even if they involve magic before she really knows magic is real) and she’s also fairly good at reading other people. She’s also not afraid to confront people, whether they’re people who are literally threatening her and her friends, or whether they’re her friends and they’re not taking care of themselves sufficiently, or anything in between.

8. What is their primary language? Do they speak it natively? Do they speak any other languages?

...I'm not actually sure. English is her primary language, as she has grown up in the USA. If Julie speaks other languages, Mandarin would be fitting (because that’s Wei’s primary language, and I know Kate also speaks it, so that could add to team unity if over half of them all speak the same non-English language), or maybe Korean depending on her family (since Kwan is usually a Korean name.) Regardless, if she speaks any other languages, then I suspect she also speaks Klingon. @davetheshady can you confirm?

9. What does the character value the most in their life?

Julie is very focused on academia, she’s accomplished and rightfully proud of herself. She wants to be respected, (she’s so tired of being disrespected in academic circles just because she’s neither white nor a man), but she also very much values her friends.

10. If they met you, what would they have to say to you?

I think she would make fun of me for quoting her so often but she makes so many pop culture references, I don’t think she has room to complain. She would probably also encourage me to pursue graduate degrees no matter how “impractical” other people find the subject.

there is no you, there is only me

Recently I made the somewhat life changing decision to quit not only my job, but working in London whatsoever. Now that I’m the other side of quite frankly, a particularly stressful few years, and have the privilege of being able to write this blog from my cosy home, with a cup of tea on the coffee table, daytime TV in the background, and no deadlines buzzing in my head, with only empty days ahead of me for at least the next week, it would be really easy to berate myself for not having made this seemingly common-sense decision earlier. After all, haven’t I been systematically stressed and burned out these past few years? Hasn’t my partner told me day after day I needed to “get out”? Haven’t I been mentally and emotionally exhausted pretty much every morning and evening for the past 6 years I’ve been working in London?

But of course, as with many of these things, when you’re “in” it, it never really is that simple, is it? It’s funny because a lot of people have told me they admire me for my decision, that they’ve wanted to quit the “rat race” too, but haven’t had the courage to do so. Yet when I look around me at all the self-help manuals sitting on book shop shelves, and the Insta-inspo quotes posted online daily, you would be forgiven for thinking this stuff is easy – that all you need to do is “chase your dream”, “snap out of it”, “be a go-getter”. But the truth of it, as my friends quite humanly identify of course, is that we don’t live in utopian vacuums. Very few of us have the luxury of no family responsibilities, or bills to pay, or an endless supply of confidence that assures us unreservedly that we will find something else. It’s not even about finding something else. “Something else” isn’t good enough…it has to be “something better” or to put it rather pessimistically, the whole miserable cycle starts again doesn’t it?

There’s also very real internal – and actually, external pressure too. I am very lucky to benefit from a circle of friends and family who are non-judgemental, who “get” this stuff, and understand that life is too short to be defined by the job that you do. But society at large doesn’t usually reinforce that message, does it? One of the first questions you get asked within the first ten minutes of meeting someone else is, “so what do you do then?”. I’d love to sit here and say I take absolutely no notice of what people think of me, and that I walk around in a blissful state of healthy self-esteem 24/7, but even though I consider myself to be a reasonably grounded person who doesn’t judge other people on this stuff, and who doesn’t regularly get too bogged down with what other people think of my choices, there’s always going to be that slightly icky, socially awkward moment when someone asks, “so what are you moving onto?” and your answer is “well…nothing actually”. Which is the position I was in until just a few days ago when I finally had some clarity about my plans. Of course, I did have a plan – even when I don’t think I have “a plan”, I always have a plan! (I’m just that kind of person!) – But the plan that I had in my mind was one that I was aware contradicted many people’s views of conformity. Typically, you leave a role because you have another lined up, and if you don’t, for whatever reasons, you are aware that future employers will speculate on why that might be. When your reasons for leaving are related to quite personal or family factors, it can feel awkward to know how to “explain yourself” as firstly, you may not want everybody knowing your reasons, and secondly, you may be aware that prioritising family over work, despite what people will have you believe, puts you a bit left of centre in comparison to what’s expected of you, particularly in your 20s. And if you happen to be an academic person, inevitably there will be pre-conceptions about what is a “waste” of “your potential”.

On the whole, I do have to say I’ve been very lucky that I’ve faced little more than a few bemused looks, and none of those have come from people I’m close with. Some have come from people I know who are incredibly career driven and who I think have their identity so wrapped up in their career that it’s just difficult for them to envision a different choice (which I can understand in a way), and some have just been curious I guess.

But whichever way I look at it, and whoever is personally in my life, it still felt a huge decision to me, and not one I took lightly, or felt easy to take.

I guess ultimately, it came down to me really thinking and reflecting over the person I want to be, and returning to what’s important to me about my identity.

It sounds a strange thing to see written down in black and white, but over the last few years, it’s felt more and more like I’ve been drifting away from who I really am and who I really want to be. I think about all the things that give me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside – family, connection, creativity, calm, meaning – and it’s just felt that that’s been all but evaporating around me, as there just hasn’t been any space. As I was walking along the country roads of Suffolk on a day trip on my first day of “freedom”, I was trying to remember the last time I could remember not feeling stressed about work, and I just couldn’t even identify a time. I tried to go further back than this past year which has been particularly tough, and think perhaps to my first few jobs, but no – I just always remember having this gut twisting knot of anxiety in pretty much any job I’ve been in.

To be honest, I think in many ways, that says a lot about who I am. I am someone prone to anxiety, I am a definite worrier, and a deep thinker, and as such I ruminate things a great deal more than the average person would. This has improved as I’ve got older, because despite having these feelings, I’m much more able to be assertive and self-aware in recognising where the feeling is coming from, and what it’s really “about”, so to a certain extent, you could say I’ve got pretty analytical about the whole thing – which helps. But it never has completely gone away. I’ve always had “imposter syndrome” in every job I’ve been- in – the feeling that I’m failing, that people are seconds away at any time from realising I’m terrible at my job and that I’m only ever a few steps away from being hauled into the manager’s office for something I didn’t do, or forgot, or a deadline I didn’t meet. Except for this never happened. Not because I’m some kind of superhuman high performer, but because that sense of anxiety has driven me forward to go way over and above what was expected, or needed, in jobs, to avoid that irrational fear of being humiliated for being incapable. And that feeds the vicious cycle, because once you become that person that’s giving 150%, when you do need to take your foot off the gas, you can’t – because you’ve built up a precedent in what other people expect of you, and it becomes like this Ferris wheel you can’t jump off of. And because that Ferris wheel is spinning so fast, all the colours blur, and the music becomes overwhelming, and lights are so bright, that you just can’t hear yourself think, and you feel so sick with it all, that there’s no way you could step off even if you really tried. You’re just consumed by it.

Anybody reading this would think by what I’m describing that I was some big shot CEO of a FTSE100 company or something. And that’s interesting isn’t it? We tend to think that these things only affect people in “high pressure” jobs, and that those of us broadly within the mundane 9-5 bracket should be able to cope. But I’ve been convinced by my experiences that no one is immune - this can, and does, happen to anyone, in any position in any company, given the right set of circumstances.

And just like any number of people out there right now who are dragging themselves out of bed in the morning, getting up at stupid o’clock to get into work, and coming home too exhausted to play with their kids, or have a meaningful conversation with their partner, or do even the smallest little thing for themselves, I just got to a point where I just couldn’t see a life outside of it. I convinced myself this was just what work was – feeling at best a sense of pride and achievement, but never without the background noise of constant pressure, stress, and our “more more more” culture where everyone has to bleed themselves dry every day just to survive. I just didn’t really think there was another option.

So going back to my original point, I think there are many and varied reasons why “quitting the rat race” is not as simple as it all sounds on paper. We can all pick up a book that tells us we’re wasting our lives worrying about work, and that before we know it, our life will have passed us by, our kids will be grown up, and we’ll have nothing to show for it. But I’m not sure any of us really believe that’s going to happen to us. It sounds crazy but I think a lot of us (me included) forget (or avoid) that very poignant, sombre fact that one day one thing is guaranteed for all of us – we will die. There will be no more us. We will cease to be. And having “but she worked so hard on that project” on my grave stone just isn’t what I want people to remember about me, as cliché as I know that sounds.

The decision was really difficult for me. I will admit that particularly in these past few years where I’ve watched friends get married and settle down with children, buy bigger houses, go travelling, or start new business ventures; things that didn’t feel like they were going to happen for me, work was really one of my main outlets. There’s a bizarre, slightly martyr like comfort in knowing you’re needed somewhere, even if that somewhere is an office in a generic part of London in a sea of companies, in an ocean of commuters. You derive some sense of self-pride and importance in it, as it’s what you have to define yourself. Particularly, I found, as you go through your twenties, it is a particularly socially acceptable way to identify yourself. You pick a box, one of which may be “hard worker” – and you set yourself up there. It’s only later down the line, it stops feeling like a choice, and more like a trap, that you forget there is a “way out” door to – all you have to do is turn the handle and step out – so why does it feel so hard?

Well, it feels hard because…it is. Like anything in life, if you’ve lived in a certain context for long enough, not only does it weave itself into your sense of core identity, the stitches make it harder for you to pull away. If you wanted to, you could grab a huge pair of scissors and slice through them, but that feels too dramatic. And too hard. And too tiring.

So I guess what it really came down to were some revelations – which by the way, didn’t come around overnight. I realised, over coffee with a very good friend who I credit for helping to spark this whole change off, that I did actually have a choice. The reason why this genuinely felt like such a lightbulb moment was that I had never even considered the possibility of leaving a job without another to go to – because that’s not the done thing, right? I started to realise that actually, my skills are my skills. They aren’t attached to a particular job, they’re attached to me – so they’re portable. And that means that there was something out there I could bring them to, but something which doesn’t have to feel like it’s taking over my lifestyle, and perhaps, who knows, I could do some of this on my own terms.

It also worried me the more I started to realise how everything in my life that was a “should do” got prioritised. So I’d ignore absolute exhaustion to get up at 5am to be in for 8am, to travel almost the entire opposite direction through London an hour early than my shift started, so that I could finish that urgent project that needed to be worked on, or answer that email that had been worrying me since last night. So I’d grab something shitty for breakfast on my way onto a crowded train, eyes half closing with every bite, sandwiched between people, endless people. So I’d find myself putting my headphones on not to listen to music, but just to reach some semblance of “silence” – some escape from the constant noise around me all day, every day. So I found myself ignoring quickened heartbeats and shallow breath as I clambered through underground tunnels to cram myself on a carriage. So I’d set endless reminders on my phone of all the of the “work to dos” and the “home to dos” and end up swiping all of them out of sheer apathy.

And what about the “want tos”? They’d just get slowly pushed down the list. So I’d schedule in seeing friends like appointments after work, endless rotations of rushed coffees and hurried dinners, rather than the lazy, open ended sleepovers I missed. So I’d look at my craft room and just sigh and turn off the light, another evening of not working on anything, too tired from the commute home. So I’d start researching holidays online and then just give up halfway through, realising there was no time to take annual leave that month, too much to do, too much to worry about.

Of course, these were my choices. But somewhere along the way, they stop feeling like choices. Somehow it just felt too tiring to try to get out – and the question was what would I do instead? I had to earn money and I had to work. But I didn’t want to feel like this any more.

So I flipped the question from a “should” to a “want” – what did I want to do if the “shoulds” weren’t an issue? Well, I knew that ultimately, my career is important to me, but that I wanted it to be just one piece of the puzzle rather than the whole picture. I knew I wanted flexibility, and time to be “me” again, and rediscover who I am without the individualism of the corporate world, and the commuting hell, and the ego wars, and the meaningless urgency to everything, and the personality clashes, and the email mountains, and the constant ladder climbing. I just wanted to be paid for something I enjoy that would pay the bills but allow me to be who I really am, and to re-prioritise around my life. A pretty tall order in today’s world.

I’d love to say I’ve packed it all in and am planning to open a craft shop (my dream) – but sadly, bills have to be paid and life does have to go on. But my next role I took time to choose carefully, and I am determined now to only walk a path that works for me, my partner, and our little family. It’s been too long conforming, too long bending myself into a mold of who I thought I had to be, and too long pretending I can do it all. I can’t. And most importantly, I don’t want to.

New British Art 2000: Intelligence was the first in a series of major exhibitions which highlighted and showed a range of new and emerging contemporary British art. It has been held every three years at Tate Britain. And intelligence was one of the largest loan exhibitions ever held by Tate and features work from twenty British artists. The accompanying book sums up the exhibitions ideas with forewords from a few select curators with a history, presence and past of each artists in which information reveals more about their working styles and motives for outcomes. The collection looks at the idea that “vision just happens to be the most efficient mechanism for acquiring knowledge”. It also calls artists ‘intelligence agents’ in a profound relationship to the new digital age. The forewords describe bond between thoughts and creativity with the new tech world. As our society develops new technology which push the limits of what we already know in an attempt to improve on every aspect of our lives it often results in a mass data collection as part of research and reflection in order to fulfil our needs. These statistical banks hold a sheer volume of data which has unbelievably fast collection, process and transmitting time (it takes a spilt second for an email to send or some documents to leak online). It almost becomes so overwhelming when you put it into perspective. So much so that it has to potential to drown our capacity for thoughts while simultaneously sparking inspiration. You can be a victim or a user. These artists are the users, they pick out the information they are attracted to and seek creating work where they display it in a captured moment in time. They apply the data to their interests to create unique, and very personal work in response to their environment and mindset. I think there is an opportunity here to create work which visualises key data in an artistic conceptual way which can further heighten the meaning, adding emphasis to a section of the statement i could make. Douglas Gordan’s work jumped right at me. He drew attention to something that we subconsciously do everyday and approached it in a physiology experiment kind of way. List of names is exactly what it sounds. He sits in a room and recounts every name of friends, acquaintances and people in passing as he can which are then scribes onto the wall. This is a test of the capacity to the human brain as well as showing how slow the process is. Yet, it identified that the process is linked which each letter triggering a new memory and stumble leads from a mistake to a success as the brain scans its memory. He repeated this at different times with names again added to the wall. Here he would have an addition but also an omission of names. It showed who really left an impact in his mind. Often it was super close relationships or those with easily identifiable names or most unique. There is obviously a human bias in the recounting of memory which is why we often recap memories slightly differently and exaggerate for effect which embeds in our mind as the truth; slowly twisting through each tale telling in the same way the list of names changes and wrong names that dont exist turn into real ones with his imagination creating a character perceived to be real. It also feels very memorial like in its list of names with emphasis on certain ones. Like a mass blend of data. Shows us the scale of data on this earth and how small each piece is.  I feel inspired to try this with fellow citizens in an attempt to recap their mind on issues that are affecting me into today's world, like terrorism acts the white house thinks the media forgot or the name of black children shooting in american that the media forgot. The rawness and honesty of his work makes it feel like an experiment. It becomes a study of the mind and this has the shocking value and making us realise the scale of our memory and really sets into question reality and the fakes. Yet, if i was to change anything i would personal hand write on the walls, i understand the vinyl cuts add a professional-ness to white gallery walls and the reference to digital data but i think structured hand writing could be interesting to see him struggle over certain names and see his face as he thinks back to those memories. Another artist, Mark Lewis, captured my attention. His work to me was very interesting in the way it a clear influence for modern day art and really explained its general presence in the world. Although his work, i think, does not fit the idea of data, it definitely is intelligent in the way he proves to us that the real world only a dream for cinema. He seems to portray the real world as the place to live as cinema is pure illusion. The Pitch is a video in which he is stood in public presenting a film pitch as the camera slowly zooms out. The film idea pitch looks at extras but unknowingly to us he uses everyday people as extras. It feels like a loophole that is kind of broke but it feels so real like reality. His piece of work completes itself and your left without many questions. That in itself shocks people because how you question something that is challenging, questioning and answering itself? Unknowingly at this point the viewer is trapped into watching and is fixated on the one guy and the extras create that ambience. Yet, they themselves become extras as the piece only will ever focus on the guy delivering the pitch. The cinema piece branches out the screen and looks at how we are fixated with the digital glow. The artist Hilary Lloyd also plays in a similar way with attempting to gain the interest and participation of the audience. He work looks at video work to which we explores the relationship between the watching, watcher and being watched. Her installation is a range of old tvs with wires that act as sculptures in their gallery like set up. Standing back removes a certain ability to emote and hence makes us less bias. Our minds then try and process it like computer process data, piece by piece and making sense of it. But we have the ability to walk away easier and its allows us not to become fixated. It is also a combination of her long distance shots. This brings into questions the use of space within data and concepts. Larger scale objects often dehumanizse us and this should be something i consider. I can use it as an advantage but some work i want more intimate to create a physic effect may have to be in a smaller place or where the frame really draws attention to it. Something i haven't thought about is the distance between the work and audience. The closer they can get the more real it becomes. Living in it could be a way to really them them connect with the mediums i’ve used and then hence discuss the concepts in external dialogues in attempt to raise awareness on issues and my statements. The long shots have me thinking about playing with a range os series of work which play with scale. Text or a focal point in an image where i can play with larger close ups and smaller distances in order to investigate the energy it creates and the response from the artists. It is very experimental in approach and desires to seek response rather than a final solid piece. This could be taken further with composition as well. Its the organisation and the negative space left which helps fill in data and would either allowed to block an audience mind to use its intellect to fill voids in the mind. The closed-ness of some work could be used to portray my artistic and view bias to my audience in order to get across a specific statement which echo the big brother oppressive controlling laws or leave it more open for discuss which by theory word of mouth would dissuades my statement and this is enough spotlight to induce the process of change.

17/05/2017

Informed my work by telling me the contrasting difference between digital and human data processing. It really began to inform and match the original ideas i had at the start of the project. It even helped tie together current work. There was this underlaying arch which focused on the current society in terms of its use of data and information. The terrorism dates in the process of human and digital remembrance and repetition shows the human error which digital transcribes perfectly. It was like a messy line cut clean by something digital. Its this contrast which works beautifully. This inspired a test piece cut from a vinyl cutter. Combining a strong statement with messy lines which were cut cleanly/crisply to give it purpose and value. Really informed my ideas of human presence still in a digital obsessed world.

Things I forgot to post so here’s a dump

Feb. 17, 2016 I've given myself five minutes to capture some of my main feelings about Bahktin's Rabelais and His World. I had a hard time grasping this book. Bahktin is not a great writer and without knowing a thing about Rabelais, the context of this book is lost on me. Through the study of laughter and a long trip through Wikipedia, I discovered that Rabelais is known for writing Gargantua and Pantagruel, a story of the giant Gargantua and his son, Pantagruel. These names I have heard many times in my life in various forms. Rabelais' work was written in the 16th Century and has been about humour, grostequeness, scat, "material body lower stratum", carnival, jesters, and all things seen as "low humour" or "low brow". Having some knowledge that this is what Bahktin is trying to describe, I find it ironic that the text is inaccessible to a regular person while the subject matter was to be presented to the commoners of society. The images that come to mind thinking about humour and the grotesque are The Joker (and every Batman villain, including Batman), Kefka, Hisoka, Resident Evil/Half-Life, pretty much any anime/video game/movie where there are experimentations that warp the human body, showcase something gross, or present it in a humourous way. Takeshi Miike also comes to mind and his level of gore that's so ridiculous it becomes funny. Tim Burton is also high up there with this. What I like about this level of humour is that it is accessible for all. It's not pleasant and it can sound very rude, but life isn't always pleasant. A little rude awakening can help. Certainly, when compared to the gore presented in the Iliad, I think a fart joke is nothing. Well, 5 minutes is up. I'll write more tomorrow.March 1, 2016 It has been a couple of weeks since I wrote anymore information about Rabelais. The more I think about what Bahktin was trying to say, the more I want to hear about it. I wish we spent more time in class on Rabelais because there is something in the way Bahktin describes the work that has gotten a hold of me and I want to read on. I'm surprised that I might find that Bahktin and Rabelais being the book I will take with me to exile. Dostoyevsky is the cause of my desire to unpack Bahktin further. Bahktin is impossible for me to read. I do not understand it and I think he is (maybe it's the translator) a terrible writer. He does not write so that the information is easy to digest. This is a problem. Dostoyevsky can be the same way but when his characters really go inside themselves and expose their thoughts and feelings, I relate to them. The connection with Bahktin is the realism both authors bring to the world. It is something I discovered with the Iliad too. I have spent most of my GLS education on looking for the ideal way to life. I wanted to find eudaimonia, enlightenment, the good life, how to become bamboo, and how to cultivate the seed of compassion. I forgot why I was interested in looking for these things. It is because I think that most days, life is dull and uneventful. As I write this, I don't know if I should be happy or glad that life is uneventful. The question I want to ask myself is: Do I want to be a great man so that many people will know and acknowledge me, or do I want to be a minor player, a extra and obscured? Do I want my voice heard or do I want to keep it silent and save it for those close to me? Epicureans might want the latter - be happy with those around you and live a simple life - that is how to obtain happiness. Maybe it is contentment. Is that so wrong? I have a desire to be better and great also. I want to be the hero of my own story or maybe the hero in others people's stories. I don't know how I intend to do that. The closest I came was when I was working with other people. I thrive on that work; it gives me so much energy to build and be more. My current life is quieter and I want to know if I can become great. This is an opposing view. Which one should I aim for and do I have time to do either? Should that be the goal of life to try anyway, even if I run out of time? The week that I am writing this, I am reading Van Gogh's letters. They show a person who is feeling the same. He wants art to be his passion and is working desperately to get there and get approval, mostly from his brother, Theo. He works tirelessly and is grateful for his brother's help and is looking somewhat on the approval from his brother too. I like these letters. I like looking into the hearts of the artists to know that they suffer a little bit too. These days, social media only shows happiness. We escape into each others' highlights and we forget how to manage the lowlights. I am waiting for some highlights right now. There is a meme online of Bob Ross. It is a quote of his that goes, "Gotta have opposites dark and light, light and dark in painting. It's like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come. I'm waiting on the good times now." The problem is when the darkness, the sadness seems unending to the point where your loved ones are too tired to see you hurt that they leave you. Who will be there to pull me out of the dark? That is where I think Bahktin's interpretation comes into play. Rabelais wrote in dark times. The world he lived in was plagued by the Black Death. Humans were coming slowly out of the dark ages (I need to make sure my historical references are accurate) yet Bahktin says there was room for fun and laughter. People knew that life was rough and Rabelais showed that they were still able to make the best of it. We are not so grateful these days. Victor Frankl speaks of his experiences with the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors. The ones who made it out were about to make the best of it and enjoy life when possible. Not true for those in Vietnam and for all soldiers living with PSTD. Jonathan Shay gives a good account of this. (Find the images of the lighters from Vietnam). The soldiers' stories were intense but maybe there was some joy and laughter too in the bad situation (will confirm when I read it or talk about it). Freud notes that we need to cope with this trauma and create narratives to survive (research this). So, this interest in Rabelais is about finding joy while living in the shit. Some New Ager might want to say that it's mindfulness and awareness. We are coping and managing our auras or some other kind of nonsense. I want to believe that we have the ability to change that but since I am in the shit, I want to go back to it and find what's funny. I really don't care if it is vulgar. I want to decide whether the grotesque is adequate in describing my conundrum, my situation. I'm so surprised that I am going back to the book I least enjoyed reading. March 17, 2016 The last few weeks in class has been tough. I'm not enjoying the works of Virginia Woolf or Margaret Buber-Neumann's Milena. I could not identify with either story and I don't think class discussions has brought me into the fold. I simply don't understand the context of these narratives. I do not have family who were rich Victorians or Holocaust survivors. I'm from a peasant-middle class family. We never tried to bring in memory into our lives. I suppose the greatest source of memory is the Book of Names that my father treasures, a list, almost like a poem of the names of my ancestors. In relation to the books we've read in this class, it is reminiscent to the names associated with the 'heroes' of the Iliad. I am from a long line of other Chinese sons that go back to the 1600s. I am weary of my role in the establishment of traditions too. Do I keep them or break them? I am the only son of the only son left in this line. I should be having another generation follow me. My mind has been pre-occupied with the continuation of this legacy and I wonder if my future partner will understand the significance to my desire to maintain tradition or will I have to abandon ship and enter a progressive relationship where the woman has an equal say in the traditional upbringing of a child. So my mind is a little split on this. I am looking for a new relationship since the old one seems to have faded and ended, as far as I can tell. I have no desire to return to her and yet I am stuck with strings still attached. Maybe those kinds of love attachments never go away but the pain and sharpness does. Is it so wrong to have that kind of feeling linger? The current crop of women I have gone on dates with seem to think that's a problem but I only recall Mary Wollstonecraft's second husband, William Godwin, who seemed to not be worried that Wollstonecraft had lingering feelings for Imlay, or others who had multiple affairs and recollections and helped bring about the story of their past lovers. Even Buber-Neumann accepts Milena's past attachments to her lovers. What is it about the modern world now that considers these memories as "baggage" that needs to be released before entering into a new life? It only seems to apply to men, but single mothers have children that are attachments to the past, yet I don't think that's looked at as a bad thing. My writing is failing me. I'm reading Kafka's Blue Octavo Notebooks, published after his death. I like his writing process, much like I enjoyed Van Gogh's painting process. I write and think in this way. It is not exactly creative but it allows for ideas to escape from my mind, where they are twisting and swirling. They don't go anywhere but now they are free to be. Sometimes I return to my thoughts and wonder what was going on in my mind at the time of writing. I am sure I will do that here too. The process of writing, getting words down on the page is important to me. I am often neglecting this wonderful transition from the internal to the external. My Grade 9 English teacher, Mr. Miller, made us write in journals as soon as we got into class. For the first ten minutes, we would sit and write. He never read what we wrote, rarely if at all. At first, I was very annoyed. I didn't understand the process so for the first few months, I wrote angrily. I wrote with so much anger and hatred and this waste of time exercise. My memory isn't so clear from that age, but I think I stopped being angry after a few weeks. I might as well write my feelings, anything that I was feeling. I liked doing that so much I continued throughout most of my high school life and undergraduate degree. I continued when I graduated and moved to Japan. My entire year there is captured and easily recalled. People ask me why my memory of the past was so strong; it is because I wrote about it constantly. It was a drive I could not contain. Nowadays, I write occasionally for school. I don't write as often. I consider myself to be too busy to write. I keep everything locked away in my mind where they can transform. A good thought can brood inside and turn into anxiety, fear, anger, hatred. I tried to speak about it but no one understands. I am better writing than speaking. I forget that about myself. An example of my brooding. On Monday, I met a young woman for dinner. I have seen her once before and I have been anxious to see her again. She is very attractive; beautiful. We talked but we didn't really laugh. Maybe we did. I can't remember because I only remember how I didn't laugh at everything, didn't try to make her laugh. I was so nervous to talk to her. I was surprised she wanted to meet again because it seemed like she didn't want to meet. She does not use her phone to text and her life seems pretty complete and busy. Yet, at the end of the night, she leaned in and kissed me. I liked it. I think she liked it. Here's my problem: "I think she liked it." I wasn't present in the moment so I couldn't feel her and I'm usually very good with that. I wonder now if that means she couldn't feel me either. Without that spark of the first kiss, we don't have a chance of getting any closer. But maybe I'm thinking about this too much? How do I stop? Her lips were very soft. Now, she's busy again for another week or two. Will I see her again? I don't know. As Roland Barthes say, "I'm the one who waits." So I wait and I wonder. I try to distract myself so I don't become anxious. I try to focus on other tasks. They don't work. But writing! Writing seems to work well. My distractions are coming up to meet me now. I must end this writing section again. Where will I go with my final paper for GLS? April 7, 2016 The last two books of this semester were Fred Wah's Diamond Grill and Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam. Both books were great for their own respective reasons. I liked Diamond Grill because there are many parallels with the Wah's trip through immigration in Canada and my own family history in Canada. My family history is very short. I don't really understand my cousins' view of living in Canada. I'm sure it's hard to be mentally challenged (is that the correct political label - why do we care so much that our words no longer offend? Whatever happened to Rabelais' vulgar, grotesque, carnival, spectacle that is what it is to be human? Why are we so focused on being clean and safe? Have we gone too far or do we need to keep going to find those limits?) or homosexual as the first set of immigrants from my family to be hard. I'm not better - a 36 year old unmarried bachelor - something my parents were not expecting when they came to Canada. They make it obvious that I should have had children by now, settled down, not focused on my dreams (if I knew what my dreams were, I would definitely have followed them - it's the problem with being an immigrant child - where do we get our dreams if they were not forced upon us by our traditional families? I don't know that I have actualized my potential and become my own self or I'm still split between the multiple selves with attached responsibilities from my immediate family to my distant ancestors. The whole filial piety thing is difficult for me to comprehend and put into practice. It pulls me in from time to time, when I see my father with a head of white hair, when my mother asks for help to lift a heavy object. My sister is there but she's not the one responsible, or shouldn't be, but has become de facto caretaker of my parents because I'm the older fairy child with one foot in reality, a foot, sword, bow, shield, aura in fantasy. I never want to leave that fantasy world; I'm afraid of reality and facing it. It's much easier to see it play out in someone else, learn the lesson from their trials, and incorporate the learnings in me. That's why we read, right? I need to come up with a way to express my choice of exile. I like the writing style of Kafka's Octavo Notebooks and Fred Wah's vivid detail of his childhood as a homage to his father. I want to provide some kind of legacy and record of my family history. It will have to change since our family history has been documented in Chinese and I'm finally regretting not learning the language in my youth. It is hard to read and write Chinese as an adult. I don't have a lack of motivation. I am incapable of memorizing new information easily. I always feel lazy, like I'm not doing enough. Life is about opportunities for experience. I am forcing myself to experience positive things, all things. I realize that I cannot possibly do this. Those who have children seem to comment on how children change their focus and purpose in life. I wonder how much of that is reflected in Diamond Grill. Wah doesn't speak much about his children. There is some two way communication between him being a son and him being a father. He plays with language so well I can't tell which way his address is heading. Shay's book is very intense and I'm interested in it because it brings me back to the fantasy world. Wah's book is real. Shay's book is meant to be real but I can't experience it other than through stories which seem to always glorify battle, even if it's meant to provoke compassion, sadness, or some other sombre emotion. The text is heavy. I feel for the Vietnam veterans. It is much easier to think about the Iliad because I can think of the soldiers as mythology and not real people. I have met a real soldier but he was young. His eyes were not young but he liked me and his platoon liked me and I felt like I was part of their brotherhood. There's something there that is not love, it's not caring, and he was their commander and it was definitely like being a mother. He talked about going berserk. His name was Sparta. I can't believe I didn't bring him up in class. Maybe I should write something about it in an email. yes, I'll do that and share my thoughts.

The art of invoicing and getting paid on time

Sixty percent of invoices are paid late, a recent global study conducted by MarketInvoice found. Furthermore, of the 80 countries surveyed, Australia was the worst for paying invoices on time.

Let that sink in for a second.

Source: Marketvoice.com

Hopefully these stats makes you feel a bit better if your customers are in the habit of letting due dates slide.

But steady cashflow is imperative to the success of your business and can mean the difference between making it past your first year or packing up shop.

Given this, here are a few tips to help you whip your customers into shape and build a healthy bank balance.

The rules of engagement

When engaging with a new client, it’s important to clearly set expectations for all parties involved. This is known as your rules of engagement.

This may be verbally discussed, listed on your quote, or included in a contract you ask your client to sign before work commences.

It should contain information about the following:

How you charge for your services

Will you bill your client by the hour or agree on a set price for the job/project?

Will you ask for a deposit before you commence the work?

Will further payments be made after agreed milestones?

What your payment terms are

What forms of payment do you accept? For example, credit card, PayPal, or direct bank deposit.

When do you expect payment to be made after completing the job? Will you allow monthly payments, fortnightly or weekly?

Will you charge for late payments? If so, how much? Ten percent of the total quote or a flat rate?

Your rules of engagement will be essential if you need to follow up payments and will help you avoid the client trying to avoid payment by saying, “I didn’t know about that”.

Visualise the flow and follow up

A process map and series of templates will help you move your invoices through the flow quickly and efficiently, and will help you keep track. It may look a little something like this:

First invoice;

Phone call to advise invoice is overdue, plus a reminder invoice with an extension of seven days;

Second reminder invoice;

Phone call, plus a past due date reminder;

A final reminder; and

Notification that the debt has been moved to external debt collection agency.

Set aside one day per week to make calls to follow up and mark your follow-ups in a calendar to help keep track.

The look and language of your invoices

There are certain requirements you must adhere to when issuing valid tax invoices.

These requirements are set out by the Australian Taxation Office and state that the following seven pieces of information must be on your invoice in order for it to be considered valid.

Requirements for invoices under $1000

The words “Tax Invoice”;

Your company/business name;

Your Australian Business Number (ABN);

The date the invoice was issued;

A brief description of the items sold or services rendered, including the quantity (if applicable) and the price;

The goods and services tax (GST) amount payable (if any); and

What items the GST applies to.

If the tax invoice is for sales of $1000 or more, you also need to include the buyer’s identity or ABN.

Aside from the government requirements, there are other elements you should consider when sending your invoice.

The submission of your invoice

If this is your first invoice for an ongoing client, then you may wish to attach a cover letter, introducing yourself and the services you provided.

That way, you start to build a relationship with the accounts receivable department.

An invoice number

It seems logical, but not providing an invoice number can wreak havoc for getting paid on time.

If there is no code to reconcile accounts on both ends of the transaction, things will get hairy at tax time.

There are a few different ways to provide an invoice number.

You can choose from:

Sequentially

Numbers in order as your jobs continue. For example, 1,2,3,4,5.

Chronologically

Date driven number sequences that are a combination of the job number and date. For example, 20161207-00001 (YYYYMMDD-JOB NO).

Project number

A combination of the job number and unique projection identifier. For example, 00001-GreenFields (JOB NO-PROJECT NAME).

The presentation of your invoice

Just because your invoice is a formal document doesn’t mean it has to be ugly. Used correctly, an invoice can also form part of your marketing strategy.

Design it in line with your branding and don’t be afraid to include some creativity.

Just make sure it’s still legible and easy to interpret.

Reap the benefits of the “recency effect”

Research shows that people tend to remember and take action on tasks that are fresh in their mind—it’s called the “recency effect”.

As time passes, details are forgotten and the sense of urgency reduces.

Remember that test you studied for in Year 9 biology?

Probably not, but you probably (hopefully) did remember what you studied the night before.

You more than likely forgot half of what you learned mere weeks later.

Without practice or reminders, information gets packed-up and stored away to make room for new, fresh information.

So what does this mean for sending invoices?

Well, if you want to get paid on time, the best chance you have is to send your invoice to your client immediately, while you and the services you provided for them are still fresh in their mind.

If this fails, sending reminders in a timely fashion will hopefully get your invoice back to the top of the pile, adorned with a “PAID” stamp.

Tools you can use to generate invoices

Thankfully there are many automated tools to help manage your accounts, including cloud-based products that enable you to access your information anytime, anywhere.

Using a cloud-based tool means that your whole financial world is connected.

As long as you have an internet connection, you can access all your financial tools and share data with your accountant.

You never need to worry about purchasing new software, because your cloud account will automatically be updated. In return, you pay a monthly subscription fee.

These tools will help you send out estimates, quotes and invoices and also provide an automated dashboard to tell you exactly what is outstanding and from whom.

They also directly integrate with many account keeping programs, making everything a breeze at tax time.

If you are not quite ready to commit to a fully automated, paid service, then you can knock up a pretty decent invoice using other platforms, such as PayPal.

You also have a basic overview of what funds have been received and what is outstanding.

Chasing your money

It may feel like one of the horrible parts of running your business, but chasing what is yours is important. After all, it’s only fair that you are compensated for your services rendered.

The way you manage your overdue accounts will set the benchmark for all future interactions.

If you come across as passive and unconvincing, then your customers will have no qualms letting a payment pass the due date.

Similarly, if you make recovery attempts and threats, such as legal action, but never follow through, then your customers will assume you are bluffing and continue to take advantage of your timid nature.

A final reminder email could look something like this:

Subject: Invoice Number

Dear (customers name)

I write again regarding the above, which remains outstanding in the amount of $(amount).

This account is past our acceptable trading terms and we are therefore commencing immediate further action.

If payment in full or at least 50% of the amount owing is not paid by [time] [day] [month] [year], the matter will be passed on to a debt recovery service.

Our bank details to make payment into are:

BANK:

ACCOUNT NAME:

BSB:

ACCOUNT NUMBER:

Please make payment urgently before this deadline, to avoid any further debt collection action. I ask that you email me once payment has been made, so I can update your account. This is extremely important.

I appreciate your business and would like to continue to have a good working relationship with you.

Regards,

Your Name

Your Title

Luscheyne Mellon is co-founder of Veromo.com, an Australian startup that offers business setup and registration services.

This article was originally published on SmartCompany. 

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from StartupSmart http://www.startupsmart.com.au/advice/growth/young-entrepreneurs/the-art-of-invoicing-and-getting-paid-on-time/