(This blog got real long and rambly, even for me. The TLDR is here, if you want.)
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Okay. For the avoidance of doubt, this isn’t a blog about Labyrinth.
I *could* write a blog about Labyrinth. Hell, I probably *should* write a blog about Labyrinth.
Did I ever tell the story of the time I dressed up as Jareth from Labyrinth?
(You *can* click to embiggen this, but you probably shouldn’t.)
Yes yes. I know. The resemblance to David Bowie is uncanny.
But as I’ve said, this isn’t a blog about Labyrinth. It’s a blog about being nervous and not understanding why.
Which means, I suppose, that this might be a blog about anxiety.
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I’ve been meaning to write a blog on mental health for the whole month of May (It’s mental health awareness month.) And there’s a certain grim humor attached to the fact that I haven’t had my shit together enough to actually finish any of the blogs I started *because* of… Mental health stuff. But all roads lead to Amber, I suppose. So here we are, and what I meant to be a blog about the kickstarter I’m launching tomorrow has the most ADHD opening ever, and then segues into me talking about anxiety.
Here’s the thing. I’ve had a vast, pervasive, and widely assorted grab-bag of mood disorder experience over the course of my life. It’s only over the last 10 years or so, since I’ve been doing a lot of therapy, that I’ve put names to things. The most notable of these is probably my relatively recently being diagnosed with ADHD.
That said, looking back, it’s obvious that some of these things have been with me through the course of my whole life. What I used to think of as my “Hamlet Moods” back in high-school had more than a passing resemblance to depressive episodes. One of my earlier diagnoses was Cyclothymia, which means I go a little higher than most people, then a little lower than most people. So I get a taste of both the manic and the depressive.
But never anxiety. Or at least not until recently. It’s only over the last 5-6 years that I’ve had a taste of Anxiety that. And I have to say, I don’t care for it. Maybe I’m just more familiar with it, but pound-for-pound it’s harder to deal with depressive symptoms.
I once had someone describe Anxiety to me as, “Hearing that tense music that plays in a video game before the big boss fight… but then no boss shows up and you’re all keyed up, thinking, where is it? What do I have to fight?”
I like this description because it makes it clear that the feeling isn’t the problem. The feeling of being a little scared and keyed up and nervous isn’t bad or wrong. It’s the way you *should* feel during a boss fight. But if you feel it so strongly you can’t fight the boss, then it’s a disorder. It’s disruptive. Alternately, what makes it a mood *disorder* is when that feeling happens and there’s no boss to fight. Otherwise it’s just a mood.
So I should make it clear. What I’ve had over the last couple years has been a disorder. Waking up in the middle of the night sweating. Being unable to sleep in the first place. Being scared at nothing. Jumping at small noises. Things like that are disproportionate and disruptive.
What I have tonight is probably just nervousness. Just feelings. I’m nervous about the kickstarter we’re going to launch tomorrow, and I don’t know why, and that’s been making me more nervous. Which sucks.
But I think I’ve finally figured it out.
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As I mentioned on the blog months ago….
Huh. I just spent 10 minutes looking through my old blogs for the post I made about Digger. I know I talked about it back during the fundraiser. We made the big announcement then. But I guess that blog is one of the hundreds I’ve half-written then left unfinished. Damn.
For those of you who want the whole story, here’s that video:
For those of you who want the short version: I found out a comic I love had gone out of print, one thing led to another, and now I’m finally doing something I’ve dreamed about for ages. I’m starting my own tiny publishing imprint: Underthing Press.
(I’m really happy with how the logo turned out.)
The first book we’re publishing is Digger. It’s our maiden voyage. Nooo… That sounds wierd. Our first try? Our… dry run?
It’s our first time. And I’m nervous. Really really nervous. Which feels so odd to me, as I’ve done a *ton* of kickstarters before. The first one we did went over really well. The Tak kickstarter blew the doors off and we raised well over $1,000,000 dollars. The card kickstarter went really well too…
So why am I so nervous about this one? I don’t mind being nervous, but I hate not knowing *why* I feel a way. If there’s actually a boss here to fight, I’ll fight it. But if not, then I need to realize I’m maybe having a problem…
I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I think I’ve finally manage to put my finger on what makes this kickstarter different.
First, the other kickstarters were all based in my world, based on my books. My thought was always, “I’ll put this out for people, and if they want it, they can buy it. And if they’re not interested, no hard no foul.”
But this *isn’t* my book. It’s someone else’s book that I’m trying to bring back into the world. If I do a bad job, I’m letting down someone else…
Another issue is that we were actually going to launch this kickstarter waaaaay back in August of 2021. But various things kept spiking our wheel. Covid problems. Paper shortages. Printers going out of business. Quotes changing. Shipping being *wildly* disrupted. As a result, what I’d initially thought of as being an easy first project for Underthing has take a lot more time and energy than I’d anticipated, as we’ve had to solve some problems multiple times….
I’m worried because we can’t fill this kickstarter with stretch goals the way I like to because we want these books to be beautiful right from the beginning.
I’m worried because we’re doing this one as a 21 day kickstarter, instead of my typical 31 that I’ve always done before….
And of course, I’m not looking forward to the people who are going to come after me for doing *anything* other than working on Book Three. That’s a persistent dread. Every time I tweet, whenever I leave my house for a walk, I know there’s probably a 50/50 chance of someone coming up to me and asking me about it. Sometimes it’s just casual, sometimes it’s aggressive, but it’s always a possibility.
But even as I type those up, I realize they’re not my real fear. The other kickstarters were side projects. They would succeed or fail. But Underthing press… It’s something I’ve kinda wanted to do for a decade. A place where I can bring books I love back into print. A way to maybe revive series that have been canceled or abandoned by other publishers.
And, of course, a place where I can publish some of my own odd little projects without having to worry about making the project appealing to a publisher. I want to do my own weird shit in my own weird way. The second book I want do publish with Underthing Press is the graphic novel of The Boy the Loved the Moon that I’ve been working on with Nate Taylor for years now. I had fun working on the Rick and Morty Vs. Dungeons and Dragons comic. But boy I felt my hands were tied in so many ways with that. There was so much I *couldn’t* do….
Yeah. Writing this down, I realize that’s the real thing. This kickstarter isn’t just me trying to bring a book I love back into print. It’s also testing the waters to see if we can make Underthing Press work. It’s seeing if people will show up after all these years of me not being able to finish my book, and trust me to at least give them a book. If this kickstarter flops, it’s not just a single project, it’s maybe the future projects, too…
So… yeah. Yay? I solved my anxiety puzzle. It still doesn’t feel great, but it feels better knowing *why* I feel nervous.
Anyway… This blog was supposed to be a kickstarter announcement, and I’ve kinda done everything but that.
What’s more, it’s no longer the night before the kickstarter, it’s the morning of. We’re going to be launching it inside the hour.
So here it is….
Here’s a link to the kickstarter page, if you’re interested. If you get there before it launches, you can click the button to be notified as soon as things go live…
If any of you have any questions about the kickstarter or Underthing Press, feel free to drop them in the comments below, we’ll try to answer them. But please be patient. As soon as the kickstarter launches, we’re going to have a busy couple days, as the first 36 hours or so of a kickstarter can determine how the whole thing turns out…
Later space cowboys,
pat
- [Edit: 2:18 PM] Kickstarter launched at 1:30, and funded in less than 5 minutes. Kinda stunned, honestly. We’re at over $50,000.
I did a livestream for the launch. Nothing fancy, mostly just me fretting and being surprised. Here’s the archived video on twitch, if you’re interested.
- [Edit: 4:02 PM] Whelp. Just got back from picking the boys up from school and saw this.
Almost at 100,000 and we’re not even three hours in. I’m honestly, legitimately surprised. Maybe I shouldn’t be, after all these years. But I still am.
Today’s a good day.