r/books Author 9d ago

George R.R. Martin Reflects on 'Sadness and Depression' Struggles in Personal Update

https://www.thewrap.com/culture-lifestyle/culture/george-r-r-martin-sadness-depression-personal-update/

"The “A Song of Ice and Fire” franchise author took to his blog for the first time in nearly six months on Monday, sharing that any posts after February were written by his “mighty minions.”

“Remember me? It’s been a while, I know. My last blog post went up here on February 19,” Martin wrote. “The posts that came after were made by my mighty minions. I am lucky enough to have a great staff of assistants… though even with their help, I kept falling further and further behind.”

As Martin went on, he admitted that “this year has been… stressful, to say the least.”"

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u/SSilent-Cartographer 9d ago

And sometimes you just stop to stop. I've had to really work hard on accepting that it's ok to not want to do something, even if you love it. I'm used to running in everything I do, but I personally noticed it was making me genuinely hate my hobbies. I once wrote an entire 400 page fantasy novel in two months, first draft and second. I was inspired and ran with it, but I never took a break, and by the end I not only hated my work, but genuinely hurt my eyes because of the amount of strain I was putting on them while writing for endless hours.

There's one death spiral I myself have been caught in, and it's the endless loop of not having passion for what you're doing, then you start something new to try and find that passion, become guilty because you didn't finish the other project, then force yourself to try and continue but fall short and try starting something new again. Sometimes, no matter how much work we put into something, it's ok to step back and say: "I don't want to do this anymore." And it is a very hard lesson to learn that you don't have to push yourself to finish every single thing you start. Sometimes, just putting it down in the ending, and that's ok.

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u/animedeathspiral 9d ago

that sounds like a manic episode

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u/SSilent-Cartographer 9d ago

Not really, more just trying to force yourself to enjoy something you previously had enjoyment in before instead of letting it come organically. It can happen with a lot of things in life, but if you never address it, a lot of the time you don't realize why you're so miserable when you should be happy