Blogtober Closing Ceremonies

Hey guys, welcome to the official final post of Blogtober.  Yes, this was supposed to go up yesterday, but I had a surprisingly difficult time writing it, for reasons I'll get into soon.  As mentioned previously, we won't be reviewing anything today, just reflecting on the month and how it all went.  But first we're going to talk a little bit about the origins of Blogtober.

I've wanted to be a writer for nearly twenty years.  I can vividly remember being in the fifth grade, right around the time I was first reading Harry Potter, and deciding that that was what I wanted to do with my life.  I don't recall any particular spark of inspiration or sudden burst of creativity, but I had started really getting into reading fantasy novels, and one day I just decided that I could add to that library.

I credit Harry Potter with making me want to write, but it was more probably a mishmash of all the things I was into at the time.  I do know that I was really into dragons.  I know this because my first writing project (that I can remember) consisted of me opening a Word document, typing The Amethyst Dragon in a fancy font, then closing it and never coming back.

As funny as that story is, it was an early indication of what would actually become a severe problem for me.  See, I don't finish things.  I've started hundreds of video games in my lifetime and finished maybe 10% of them.  I rarely finish reading books or comics series, and almost never finish watching TV series.  Hell, sometimes I don't even finish movies.

And I have never, ever completed a writing project.

I can't really say why because I can't really claim to know.  I mean, I know I have problems to work through.  As a kid I was diagnosed with ADHD, which can partially explain why I get distracted so easily.  I haven't been diagnosed with anything in my adult life, and I don't want to arbitrarily slap names on things, but I have symptoms of depression and sometimes-severe anxiety issues.  I used to work for Statistics Canada, but I suffered a nervous breakdown in spring of 2016, and I haven't been back to work since.  My wife Jessie works full-time and takes care of me, and I genuinely don't know what I would do without her.

The reason I bring all this up is to explain that this is the reason I created Blogtober.  I've wanted to start a blog for a long while now, and I figured it would be good for me to have something that I have to do.  Any other time I've come up with something I want to write, the only person I can disappoint is myself.  Here, though, if I don't deliver, everyone knows it.  I have to explain myself if I don't follow through.  I set up this situation because I wanted to force myself to write.  Has it worked?

Well, I've explained before that I've been doing these "watch a movie a day" lists every October since 2014, making this year number four.  This is also the first year in which I actually completed the list.  Blogtober is almost definitely the reason for that.  There were delays here and there, definitely, and sometimes I would put it off until the last minute.  But the fact still stands that, over 33 days, I wrote 33 movie reviews.  The only thing keeping the project from being complete was this post.  And I don't complete things.

At some point this became my mantra, a fact of life.  I'll never complete anything because I don't complete things.  I'm not good enough, I don't have what it takes, and no one would enjoy it anyway.  I don't know if people have been enjoying this, but what I do know is that I want to complete things.  I enjoy writing, and not just reviews of the things I like.  I want to tell people stories.   It's all I've ever wanted to do.  I have so many things in my head, fighting to get out, but none of them have ever been strong enough to overcome the wall of defeatism.

But I'm writing this now.  When this post is complete, the Blogtober project will be complete.  Earlier this year I wrote on a piece of paper "I will be published by October 31" as a sort of motivational tactic.  That didn't quite happen, but once this post is, well, posted, I will consider it a success.  I am genuinely afraid I'm going to have a heart attack right before I click "publish."  Let's drag it out a bit longer.  How was the month itself?

Well, Halloween wasn't quite what I wanted it to be.  October was a month of high stress levels for my wife and me, almost all of it from outside sources.  But we're almost on the other side, and I'm actually really glad I went through with this.  It was stressful, I put a lot of pressure on myself, sometimes to the point of making myself sick.  But it's over, and I didn't give up.  I did not give up.  I proved to myself that I can complete something, and go figure, I'm even happy with the quality.  Most of it isn't amazing, but I can do better and I know it.  Knowing you can do better is much nicer than knowing that you can't.

And what do you know?  I actually enjoyed most of the movies.  Yes, we had a few duds in the mix, but overall I'd say this year's list was a big success.  Phantasm continues to be a highlight of my year; I finally finished the Harry Potter movies; I got to watch again some of my favorites, like Hellraiser and Ghostbusters (both, and don't you forget it); and there were even some nice surprises, like Warm Bodies and Goosebumps.

Okay, so The Town that Dreaded Sundown was a massive disappointment.  I don't know what I expected from a TV movie from the 1970s, but it somehow failed to live up to even those expectations.  And yet it still wasn't as dull as Son of Dracula, which, wow, how even.  There were also, somehow, two separate movies that fall apart in the last ten minutes or so.  Let it never be underestimated the importance of a satisfying ending.

If anybody has been keeping up with Blogtober all along, feel free to let me know your thoughts.  Did you enjoy it?  Should I do it again next year?  If so, what are some movies you'd suggest for the list?  Either way, thanks for reading.

As for upcoming plans, things are a bit in flux right now.  Once I publish this post, I'm going to take a few days off and just veg out.  I have one more project I'd like to complete before the end of the year, but nothing is set in stone yet.

I would also like to eventually post some of my original fiction, once something is finished.  Blogtober has been a roller coaster ride of mixed emotions, but it has convinced me that I want to continue writing.  I just have to figure out the best way to do so.

Anyway, this brings Blogtober to a close.  If you've been here the whole time, and even if you haven't, I just want to thank you for taking the time to read my words.  It means a lot to me, and I hope you've found them entertaining thus far.  If not, thanks for your time anyway.  You've been here for something momentous: I finally finished something.  I can't tell you how happy I'll be to click "publish."

Assuming I survive.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - What We Saw From the Cheap Seats (Regina Spektor, 2012)
Playing - Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
Reading - The Complete Books of Blood (Clive Barker, 1984)
Watching - Kamen Rider Build (2017)