quantifica october

Hey team,

A proper update, after some time. Hope you are well.

PROGRESS REPORT

I buried the lede on this: I have officially decided I am not quitting YouTube.

The current project is A Guide to Flaming Out, the first chunk of which is posted here.

I have interrogated my relationship to work and determined that I do, in fact, benefit from deadlines. I stopped working to deadline because it a little bit killed me: when I was attempting a monthly schedule, my perfectionist streak reared up in the need to meet that target, which really meant trying to average 12 videos a year which happened like once and then I was always scrambling and promising to make up the shortfall and get us back to the "correct" average. Once the channel was successful enough, I relaxed on the deadlines, but I've found that just moved the perfectionism to needing every video to be the best version of itself it could be. When I was working to deadline, I was more willing - to use an art school term - to get to a "point of completion," publish the video, and move on; the perfectionist in me wanted to build an impressive body of work rather than a string of individually impressive videos.

I do not want to destroy myself with a monthly schedule again, but "it's done when it's done" has left me really struggling to finish things at all, with - by my current count - 10 different projects in various stages of production that I just flit between and stress about.

So: going forward, I will make back-of-the-envelope estimations about how much time I think a video should take, balancing the assumed workload and how much of my life I think is reasonable to sink into the topic, and set a rough deadline according to this. The deadline is not immovable, but I will need to treat it as at least medium-firm. It will not do to give myself a 3-month deadline and then give myself "one more month" for a year, which is part of why I'm announcing them to you.

This means making rough estimates of how long I think a script will be, how much work I think will go into the scripting vs. the editing, and making an estimation from that. To whit: A Guide to Flaming Out will be posted in chunks as they get completed; I have estimated 21 chunks (which is generous, I suspect the final count will be less) and assumed, given the work that went into the first edit, that roughly 50% of the work is writing and 50% is editing (normally writing is more like 20% but, factoring in the amount of labor that goes into prep and research, plus trying not to be so precious with editing, this particular video is trending closer to 50/50). Given that, I penciled December 8th as a target for completion, and hope to release a few chunks per week. With, currently, 11 chunks written and one edited, I have calculated that the project is 28.6% complete with slightly over a month to go. And I am letting myself focus on this project alone; I am not forbidden from touching anything else, but I am gently redirecting myself back to the current task so it doesn't become an 11th spinning plate.

Also the job hunt has born fruit and there is a high likelihood I will begin part-time work in the near future. I've already been scheduling my work on the assumption 10-20 hours a week may soon be spoken for, so this shouldn't throw off the timeline too much, but we'll see how much it affects my energy level.

BINGO CARD

Three new squares this month, and there were a couple in the last few where posts were scant. One is redacted for privacy reasons (but was awesome), I saw a second concert (Hiatus Kaiyote), saw a play (two plays, actually: Mother Mary and Come From Away), an accomplishment from last year's list in the blue square ("make art that is primarily expressive rather than primarily informative," which A Guide to Flaming Out definitely is), and two bonus squares for the game jam in August and...

Okay so cards on the table: the final bonus square is completing a three week Partial Hospitalization Program. I am going through a lot, and that's why A Guide to Flaming Out is the project I need to be working on right now. I am attempting to use my skills as a video person to process my own life, as opposed to processing art or politics. I am still very private and you won't learn, at any point, the specifics of what I've been dealing with (and please don't ask; I know it comes from a caring place, and I appreciate that, but my privacy is very important to me), but you're still gonna learn a lot about me. This is the most personal I have ever been, and it's terrifying, and while I think it will go public once it's finished I am not positive on that, and I may do something like only have it public some of the time or keep comments turned off or something else. But this is what I need to be making right now, and I do not make art to be consumed by myself alone. So. We're gonna do something weird here.

And to address any concerns in advance: I am safe, and I will be ok. Things are bad, but, as a result, I am becoming a better and healthier person as a survival strategy. You do not need to worry about me.

MINIMIX

Jigs. As ever, if you are not logged into Spotify, the app will pepper this with extra songs not of my choosing. Don't blame me if it gives you offal.

Third Eye
"You deserve to be loved and you deserve what you are given."

Fee Ra Huri
"Fiddle daddle day diddle dee di doe."

Too Young To Go Steady
trumpet

More Dumb
"We're just little lightning bugs dancing on the meat, driving our skeletons around."

What It Sounds Like
"Truth after all this time, our voices all combined."

Overnight
"I'll still meet you in the middle of the night..."

FILM RANDOMIZER

Okay let's play some catch-up here: reviews for Eileen, Turbo Kid, The Breadwinner (loved it), Harper, The Messenger, and The Eternal Daughter. I have also, at your request, watched KPop Demon Hunters (as you might've guessed by HUNTR/X showing up on the minimix) but I promised you longer reviews for the films you selected for me so I am still formulating my thoughts on it (they are largely positive).

There are 15 films left on the list with fewer than 8 weeks left in the year. This one might not get completed! Or I might plan some movie marathons with friends. We'll see!

READING LOG

Finished Exordia a while back and really enjoyed it, took over two months and haven't been able to get far into anything since. Reading has taken a hit, and that's ok.

GAME CABINET

Nothing new to report.

Okay folks, that's all for now. More chunks of the current project soon. Have a good night.

-I