[Kiki's journal]

Maybe making a comic strip would work? Something short wouldn't be too hard once you can internally establish a few shallow facts about your characters' personalities and situations, and then all you need is a good one-liner and a bit of setup and there you go. Heck, you could start with the one-liner and make the characters around that, if that works better for you. You could even just try a joke you've already heard before, if you can't think of anything. After that you should be able to improve pretty reasonably, just by practicing and adding on to that one joke, adding maybe a comeback from another party, or more setup if you think it needed to be a bit more solid in the first place. Eventually you can add more jokes and expand upon that, and while it might take a while, really doing something small like a comic or even a simple joke can be made into the building blocks for complex stories, just by exposing more of a character and how they react to certain scenarios. All you would need would be some action scenes, which are pretty story non-intensive, and a bit of character development, which can be done partially through a joke, and there you have it, an entire episode of anime. Of course, you would need to draw it all, too, but . . .

Oh, and I disagree heartily with the belief that drawing is only there to present a story, or even that your drawings are in no way a story. A picture or drawing or image or whatever is only as enjoyable as the person looking at it can enjoy it. Art is for both enjoyment and for education, and if you decide to make something that people can look at for a few minutes or even seconds and feel better about themselves, then isn't that enough?

[J(e)RK's Journal]

Day 2

I'm feeling unsure today. Aside from cleaning my room, I don't think anything else I've done over the last month is necessarily out of the ordinary, even for the old me that played video games. I still end up spending a lot of time just watching YouTube and less time than desired on playing piano and working on my card game or dancing. Part of the issue, as well, is that I'm forced into doing a lot of things that waste my time because I can't drive myself places, and I end up wasting 2 hours on each school day to go and partake in track, which I'm no good at, since I'm not very athletic, and find myself generally apathetic towards, since I've been doing it for a year now and have seen little improvement. Maybe it's just that it isn't a fix that happens within a month, but I want to say that I could have fixed at least one thing, which I suppose I have been working more on my card game than before. I guess it's just that even when I had school and didn't play video games, I still didn't work on my card game, and I still hardly worked on piano for that week. I mostly worked on my dance in the morning when I had like 10-15 minutes of free time, if I even worked on it for that long. Maybe I just need to quit YT as well, and everything would get better. I think I'm gonna go on a bike ride and come back and see what I think. More than anything, I wish that there was someone who could do something with me on a regular basis and take whatever that something is seriously. If I had a band of people to play with, I could certainly spend more time playing music, at least with them. I guess I just want a feedback loop or something, and that's something I can't seem to get outside of video games, at least not at my age, and where I live. As much as I hate to say it, I think school is not necessarily for me. I have been thinking about going to the North Carolina School of Science and Math, but as of recent, it just feels plain wrong. I've even had some doubts about college, for that matter. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can enjoy math and science, and even watching some debates on YT about religion and the like, but I just always find myself more impressed with the version of me that just expresses himself. I feel like nothing is going to change until I can move out, and no matter what I try, I find myself stuck in a little box because of my age, and that alone. I feel like I am perfectly capable of going to grocery stores, but I live 15 minutes away from any town, and that's by car. Even when I was cleaning my room yesterday, I can't just drive to the consignment store or the charity or whatever and get rid of all this stuff, and that's all it is to me at this point in time. But instead, I just have all this stuff in my room, just waiting for me to have that shadow of doubt which makes me go back on it.

Well, that was a perfectly circular paragraph. Sorry for the rant all, I just needed to get it out and didn't know where else to go. For certain, I want to just break down and play video games, but I don't think that's the path for me. I think I need to continue pursuing my artistic side and find out what I'm truly capable of, and maybe then I can go back. But until then, and until school stops getting in my way, I'm afraid that quitting is the way to go. Sorry if you just read that paragraph and thought "you know, I could really help this kid out", but apparently all I need is like an essay to get out my feelings. And look, that's what this is turning into as well. So I'm just gonna stop.

I think I'm just gonna binge listen to A Real Life by Greek Fire.

I just feel so helpless sometimes...

At the very least, I got to talk to friend today who I really haven't hung out with in a while, and all he really does is video games. He helped me work through some things, and while all he really did was state the obvious, that was all I needed. I really just want to play music. There isn't much more to it. Even if my life has to revolve around school since my future is dependent on it, music is what I really want to spend time on.

To summarize what I got done today, I have:

• Swam for about 30 mins
• Got a few pictures riding around on my bike
• Practiced piano for about 30-40 minutes
• Did not actually work on my card game
• Did nothing so far as dancing
• On schedule for going to bed at 9
• Significantly questioned my resolve and purpose for quitting games, and whether I actually achieved that goal

Daily Goals:

• Finish at least naming the cards in my two starter decks
• Practice for at least 40 minutes on piano
• Go on a bike ride and take a picture of something
• Be in bed by 9
• Practice dancing for at least 20 minutes
• Do something for school

Weekly Goals:

• Card Game: Finish the two starter decks for my card game
• Piano: Prepare for my performance on Sunday, the 31st
• Personal: Clean my room and keep it clean.
• Dancing: Figure out how to make a goal for dancing
• Biking: Find a cool spot out in nature and take a picture of it from an elevated position.

[the days of a viewer]

Hey Frigga Stiglitz, I see you're new here. I'm new as well, but I would like to welcome you to the journals and wish you luck breaking the cycle of toxicity. I'm sure you've heard this like 100 times, but if your brother is going to be addicted, then there isn't much you can do unless he asks for help, or at least realizes that there is an issue. Just remember that you are not responsible for his well-being and if he wants to throw away his life, then that's his choice.

[Kiki's journal]

Well darn, I can't even think of a nice, not self-centered compliment for you, not even after trying for 10 minutes. Well, I guess it was worth every second, because I imagine it would take longer than that even to truly appreciate every little detail you've put into the image.

I gather you've been here before, so I imagine you'll find success again this time, maybe even for good. Good luck!

[J(e)RK's Journal]

Day 1

Starting early on this journal, because I just went and checked out the Team Fortress 2 blog and looked over some of the patch notes I never saw, due to having quit. Oddly enough, it was all pretty boring. Even if I was playing, it was all pay to access stuff, nothing that really affected me without me having put more money into it. Furthermore, this means that if I were to start up the game on an impulse, it would be more or less the same as before. So far I got up at 5 and managed to read some blog posts until now. Probably gonna go eat some food, and try to be out of the house around the crack of dawn for a bike ride. Hoping to get a pretty picture of the sunrise at the end of my road (there's a nice dock).

Money shot get. Haven't got to working on my other stuff yet, but breakfast and bike ride (with pretty picture included) are finished. Probably going to go take a shower after this and then to work on my card game.

Began working on my card game, got a snack, watched a little tv, then came back downstairs and suddenly had to clean my room. Decided to do a little "winter cleaning" and just looked through everything I've accumulated over the years, and trying to get rid of all of it that I don't want or need. I currently have 3 trash bags full of clothes on my bed and a couple large plastic boxes of stuff to get rid of. Hopefully reducing clutter will make it easier to keep it clean. At the least, spending a long time organizing always makes it easier to justify taking the extra 2 seconds to put things where they belong.

I'm a little behind schedule for bed, but I'll have to live with that when I get up at 5 tomorrow. I got in some good piano practice, but I spent a lot of time watching YouTube today. I also managed to look at a ton of things to get rid of, although I'm going to have to wait until I have some means of getting rid of all of it until I can actually get my cluttered room cleaned up. First day on this schedule was a minor success, but I never got to dancing today and it's too late now with all this stuff in my room. I've got five things to complete this week, and hopefully I can master at least part of the Hopak or Cossack Dance. I would love to quit YT because I think it would prevent days like this, but I don't even know that that would help. I need a legitimate escape, and YT provides that, albeit for too long sometimes.

Goals for this week:

Piano: Prepare for my performance this Sunday, the 31st. Looking forward to it.

Card Game: Finish notes on cards and begin compiling decklists for my first two decks.

Biking: Check out some cool spots and try to climb some trees for shots or something similar to that.

I'm not really sure how to set goals for dancing, so I guess just work on that

Clean my room and keep it clean. Gotta start somewhere.

 

[J(e)RK's Journal]

Well alright, I've quit for exactly one month today and am looking for some new fancier tricks to maybe spend less time on YT now, so I figured writing a journal couldn't hurt.

Oh, and quick note, my alias is just my initials (JRK), and I joke a lot about just adding an E to it to make it what I am. I know that self-deprecation isn't great and blah blah blah, but I like the name.

Quick background check, I loved video games since about 2009, at the age of 7, when I went to Spain for 2 weeks and got it to avoid crippling boredom on the plane ride over. At least that's what my parents got it for me for. I had 2 original games which I was pretty addicted to, but if I had stopped there I would have been just fine. Long story short, I didn't stop there and it wasn't fine. At the time of quitting, my favorite game was Team Fortress 2 (I'm kinda a retro kid). I had put in a "measly" 2,250 hours, which could have been worse, but my next most played game on Steam was Warframe with 400 hours, and I played around quite a bit. I quit cold turkey on November 27, 2017 after I procrastinated hard on two projects which I had to have turned in within the next few weeks. I quit that night and slept on it after discovering Game Quitters and getting inspired enough to make myself a little passive-aggressive document entitled Mission Control, which I add on to every now and then and check back in whenever I'm running low on willpower.

A few other details you may want to know about my are:

I have played piano for 9-10 years and would absolutely do it for a full-time job when I get older if I was presented with the option

I love almost any type of music, especially if it was popular "before my time".

As I stated before, I'm kinda a retro kid and not the hugest fan of technology, since it makes my lack of willpower much harder to manage.

I'm working on a trading card game modeled after a chess-like board and movement system and early Magic: the Gathering or pokemon-type cards. I'm currently unsure of the name and working on 2 decks for a test product. For the record, I would "settle" for working on this or a game similar to it as a full-time job.

I'm attempting to get out for bike rides and take pictures of the world around me at least once a day.

I'm also attempting to learn how to do a type of dance known only as the Hopak, or at least parts of it, and hoping to join a dance troupe soon. I haven't done so already due to difficulties in the area I live (I call it the city that always sleeps, mocking how much it is not like NYC).

I am a pretty skeptical and suspicious person. That's all there is to that one.

As far as my current progress, as stated before, I quit a month ago now for what I hope is for good. At the current moment, whenever I am hit with the urge, I use the rationale of "it doesn't matter and just prevents you from getting what you want". I'm not entirely sure what else there is to say. Good luck to those of you who are trying to quit at the moment and who have quit for a while, and thanks for your time. Hope I could help in some way.

For the record, I am currently trying to go to sleep around 9 each night and wake up around 5, in order to get the sleep I need. I am unsure of what order I need to do everything in, but for days without school, I am hoping to get 2+ hours of piano practice in, 2+ hours of card game development, and go on a half hour minimum bike ride and take a picture of something. I'll check in here every night around 8 EST, at least that's the plan. Otherwise, I hope to spend at least an hour or so on school and school-related stuff each day. All the rest of the time is mine, so long as I don't run to video games.