The Mandelverse - Blockchain Blogging Burnout and Relaunch

Some of you may know that I recently went through a bit of a brain-burnout. I was simply trying to do too many things at the same time. For this reason, I've begun re-thinking how I've been approaching everything.

Being a blogger on the blockchain means that there is always a strong incentive to keep going: your posts are now actually potentially worth something directly. Don't get me wrong - I blog because I love it, not only for the possibility of monetary reward. If that weren't true, I wouldn't have blogged for all the years before blockchains even existed.

But everyone will just have to admit it: The fact that your posts can be rewarded is a huge incentive for keeping you going. So with me, that is compounded with my natural love of sharing my art and my thoughts with others. Which is why I think I my brain overloaded. I couldn't stop blogging, and thinking about blogging.

Every new idea was put onto a list to be done as soon as possible. Even after recognising that I had too much on the list, and trying to narrow it down, I just couldn't. So eventually, I burnt out, waking up one day feeling an apathy for it all like never before. I got out of bed late (gasp), watched Netflix for as long as I wanted, did whatever I liked... And this lasted for a few days. Even still, I worked on a few posts, not wanting to be off the grid completely.

Anyway, now I'm back and trying to figure out how to pace myself so that that doesn't happen again. I'm really not sure that I'll succeed in this because I can feel myself slowly becoming more and more excited again as I get back into each thing that I was working on. What I'm going to do now is go through a few of the main projects I'm busy with and let you know how it's all going.

ART: Mandalas, fine art, adult colouring book, Redbubble, SuperRare and Patreon.

 
Creating art has really become my main passion over the last few years and as you can see, I'm trying to get it out there in many different ways. The weekly mandalas have been a wonderful way for me to keep connected to doing something visually creative because when it comes to doing fine art, inspiration is very sporadic. They have also been good in that the colouring book idea came from them, which I'm hoping to get finished soon.

I've done almost 40 fractal mandalas for it so far, and am planning on doing another 20 or so. It takes a while because as you probably are aware from my weekly mandala posts, each one takes a while not only to "discover" in the fractal chaos, but then also to render at a high resolution. Still, I'm hopeful that it'll be ready in time for Xmas =)

The colouring book is exciting because it's the first real possibility I have for having a source of income from my artwork, but I'm working on other possibilities too.

I went to see a printer here in Salvador last week, and discovered that they are officially certified with Hahnemühle, an old and very much respected paper making company from Germany.

I got price quotations from them, as well as some fancy paper-handling gloves, and discovered that I'll be able to provide any buyers of my artwork with a Certificate of Authenticity, complete with a hologram sticker system that identifies the work as 100% unique. Very exciting stuff - now I just need buyers! wink wink, hint hint

On top of that, I've been updating my Patreon page with new rewards, and I'm not done yet. Please do go check it out and let me know what you think of the rewards... I'll be tweaking them over the next few weeks and then expect me to start actively asking you all to support me ;) (Self-promotion has never been my forte but I'm going to try hard - through Instagram, Facebook, here and in Discord, a whole 'nother topic that I'll refrain from writing about here).

And then there's RedBubble... I've been slowly adding motifs there - so far, only Mandalas - and once I've gotten a substantial collection of designs there, I'll be advertising it too. They have all sorts of products available and apparently if you can just get a few things sold, it becomes much easier to get noticed on the website (their algorithms really like creators whose stuff has already sold, you see- hint hint, again ;P)

And lastly, there is SuperRare, an exciting new thing I found out about thanks to @pbock - It is a site where you can upload your unique digital art, and people can bid on your work. When you accept a bid, the money is transferred to your account and the bidder officially owns that digital art - uniquely identified on the blockchain. I'm looking forward to starting there.

WRITING: The Garden Kingdom, occasional philosophical posts, and the No Man's Sky diary.

 
I didn't quite realise the size of what I was biting into when I started the project "The Garden Kingdom"... =)

I saw it as just something light and fun to write once or twice a week, with some friends to help make it interesting. But it has grown into this wonderful adventure where @AnyaEhrim and I find ourselves creating backstories that go back thousands of years. And writing each chapter takes quite some effort because we've created a complex world that branches off into several timelines so keeping things without paradoxes becomes harder and harder as we go.

Which is why we've had to discuss things a lot - from the characters to the backstory to drawing out a rough sketch of the Kingdom map (which is, in fact, the main character's back garden).

By having a map, we are able to write our chapters and refer to things in them, without having to constantly consult each other.

And we are slowly progressing. Seven chapters have been written and after a bit of a break, we're both getting to the next 8 (4 each). Because it is a choose-your-own-adventure, the linear story is only 3 chapters in. So 3(actually 7) down, 7(actually 153) to go!

The No Man's Sky diary is my way of controlling how much I play the game. I've always had a way of getting way too immersed in games I love and end up sinking too much time into them, so by having to write a diary of my character, I can't play too much without having to stop so that not too much happens in game which I would have to relate in a post. I try to do them once a week.

I've also recently decided to start doing gameplay video posts, which is another example of me not being able to help myself - new idea! Let's do it! .. We'll see just how often I'll be able to get those up, but the idea is to give myself the chance to relax a little by playing some of the many games I have in my Steam library while at the same time integrating my beloved hobby of gaming with the blogging world.

That way, when I play, I won't feel guilty that the time is being used for entertainment purposes only, as Snekky would say ;P

The Golden Apple Award, Talking to My Future Self videos, and other miscellaneous ideas which I just don't have time for but will try to do anyway! ;P

 
The Golden Apple started as just a simple idea that I came up with when thinking about how to get more involved with the You Got Snekked Community when I joined them a few months ago.

Now I have the "@thegoldenapple" account and have big plans for it. As soon as I get myself together, I'll write up a First Post, asking for delegations. My goal is a lofty 100000SP ... And then with the account, I'll start to reward anyone who is particularly community minded on Steemit. I simply don't have the time to do a similar thing on Whaleshares, sadly - but maybe there's someone out there who would like to start it? =)

Then, my Talking to My Future Self vids. They are also meant to be a weekly thing, but just like the mandalas, I've started doing them whenever I get the chance. Still pretty regularly, but if I don't get in one every week strictly, I'm not going to panic. Not good for my brain, and besides, I really shouldn't ever be panicking, considering my profile picture ;P

Something I've been planning to do forever now is a podcast entitled "Intense Discussions", although now I'm thinking maybe "In Grok We Trust" might be cooler... A podcast in which I would interview people on the blockchain about their convictions/beliefs/secret thoughts ;P ... It would be something I would thoroughly enjoy but it takes some preparation and I'm still psyching myself up for it.

Other things I've got planned is, another project with @anyaehrim called "Two Minds, One Art" in which we collaborate and create art or write poetry together. I want to start doing animations with fractals again, which takes a ridiculous amount of time to do, considering that each and every frame in a typical 720 video takes anything from 5 minutes to half an hour to render, depending. And somewhere deep down there is an idea to create an account called @wowbagger, after the awesome character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and go insult everybody on the blockchain with the account, in alphabetical order, using only comments, no posts. But aahh man, when am I ever going to have time for that? lol.

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Alright... I think I've basically updated you all on everything now. Thank you for being a sounding board - this kind of post is great for me, to get my mind organised... Or as much as is possible anyway ;P

 
And I didn't even mention that I have to spend most of my time teaching English for a living... That, and other RL things which one just has to do... My hope is that one day, I'll be able to quit teaching because my art/book sales are doing well enough to sustain me. I used to think of that as a pipe dream but now I've come to think it may be a real possibility - I just need to put in the work!

Anyway... Again, thank you for reading! I'll leave you with another of these awesome bitmojis which I've finally got into... (if you can't beat em, join em, hehe...)