Experiences Do you ever take on more than you can handle?

[Parallax]

I'm talking about when it comes to roleplays.

Maybe too many at once, or maybe you make too many promises you can't keep of activity.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all that you have to potentially write?

Share your feelings about this and let me know if it's ever happened to you!

 

[Lord Aphrodite]

Most of the time when I am, I stick it out, because it’s right after I post a partner search. I stick it out because I know I won’t mesh with some people, and others will just ghost me.

That way when they’re all gone and I’m with my more long-term partners, my workload in much less and much more manageable.

 

[Shuusuke]

There have been times I'd say I did, but not so much about quantity because I'm very cautious about that to begin with. I only do group RPs, and there have been times where I thought I was falling behind on the quality of my posts. Wasn't inspired to find good words, wasn't liking the way I linked the words, didn't have promising ideas about what to write when I had the opportunity to add something to the story, that sort of thing. So I struggled a bit with those and often found myself wishing that things would slow down a bit, not because I wasn't liking the RP, quite the contrary, but because I felt like I wasn't able to keep up.

Lately though, I think it's gotten a twist. Of course there's the fact that I haven't found many RPs that I'd be that interested in, but even when I do, I often get this feeling that the aforementioned thoughts are going to come up again. It's hard enough to find RPs I'm interested in, and I don't want to add that extra risk to those and increasing the odds of them failing. So it's pretty much predicting that I'll be taking more than I can handle.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Oh yeah but as Lord Aphrodite said usually when I overbook I just let things ride out as inevitably most of my responders will drop out and I’ll end up with one or two partners.

 

[Lord Aphrodite]

Oh yeah but as Lord Aphrodite said usually when I overbook I just let things ride out as inevitably most of my responders will drop out and I’ll end up with one or two partners.

Me n Geeky r smart.

 

[Damafaud]

Uhh at one point last year I found myself in 16 RPs at the same time.

I didn't remember how I get to be active in all of them and still get good scores in my exam.

Well most of them die half way through so maybe that helps, but it was still a lot of a lot.

 

[rae2nerdy]

Uhh at one point last year I found myself in 16 RPs at the same time.

I didn't remember how I get to be active in all of them and still get good scores in my exam.

Well most of them die half way through so maybe that helps, but it was still a lot of a lot.

You had a food schedule lol.

Actually one of my current partner does have a set schedule we set up for when we submit replies. I really like this idea as it gives me something concrete to shoot for each week.

 

[Idea]

Oh boy...

Yeah, all the time. It's one of my bad habits. It happens as a result of the combination of two matters of my personality, I'll leave you to judge whether they are both problems or not.

The first is that I simply can't resist getting new partners sometimes. Sometimes someone I wanted to roleplay with for a long time , or someone whose search thread really makes them seem like an awesome potential partner or even if I just have such a strong craving that I am willing to do way more compromises than usual to get it.

Second, I am (or try to be) very loyal to my word. To the best of my ability, if I compromise to work with someone in a certain way, even if I get some other interest I don't just up and drop it.

As a result, I have a hard time letting go of roleplays and a hard time occasionally avoiding jumping into new ones. However, even this is something I notmallly have enough self-control to avoid. The real problem is instead when I find myself with a sudden period of unexpected lack of availability. Recovering from such a period means I suddenly have a ton of compromises on top of each other , and the stress of it gives me freezes, making it harder to post, which in turn increases the load, makes me more nervous and so goes the cycle until I manage to clear enough to clam down.

 

[Lord Aphrodite]

Oh boy...

Yeah, all the time. It's one of my bad habits. It happens as a result of the combination of two matters of my personality, I'll leave you to judge whether they are both problems or not.

The first is that I simply can't resist getting new partners sometimes. Sometimes someone I wanted to roleplay with for a long time , or someone whose search thread really makes them seem like an awesome potential partner or even if I just have such a strong craving that I am willing to do way more compromises than usual to get it.

Second, I am (or try to be) very loyal to my word. To the best of my ability, if I compromise to work with someone in a certain way, even if I get some other interest I don't just up and drop it.

As a result, I have a hard time letting go of roleplays and a hard time occasionally avoiding jumping into new ones. However, even this is something I notmallly have enough self-control to avoid. The real problem is instead when I find myself with a sudden period of unexpected lack of availability. Recovering from such a period means I suddenly have a ton of compromises on top of each other , and the stress of it gives me freezes, making it harder to post, which in turn increases the load, makes me more nervous and so goes the cycle until I manage to clear enough to clam down.

^^^ This too. All of this.

 

[welian]

All the time... usually I'll go through phases of interest, and the most overwhelming stuff happens with i'm in my "not interested in RPing" phases and then the guilt sets in. Sometimes I wait several months for my interests to shift again, and sometimes I just force myself to write whether i like it or not.

 

[Genkai]

I used to. When I was in middle/high school I'd have over a dozen going on (on another site) but the posts were short and easy to send off. As I developed as a writer, I became more selective so I didn't burn myself out by taking on too much. These days I do try to make sure I don't have too much on my plate, when I do feel that way, I try to step back for a few days and make a list of when a post needs to get done, usually the poor partner waiting the longest gets one first. But that said, if I have to manage my time of when to post, I lose interest in having to carve out time for writing. Life does come first and it often has a way of well, getting in the way. But if I feel bogged down, I try to keep in touch even if a post may not be coming up anytime soon, I do try to stay in contact and let my partner know I'm still hanging around and just waiting for the best time to sit down and crank out longer posts.

Nothing kills motivation to post when I feel overwhelmed though. Sometimes a short post is better than waiting for the perfect conditions.

Sometimes you need some casual/stress-free RPs to relax your mind and not worry about life or plotting.

All in all, if you can't take on what you have, better to tell your partner than string them along. I don't want my RP to cause someone stress. If that is the case, I do try to not actively recruit new RPs. Nothing says 'dick' like being too busy to post but then bumping an interest check. I've seen that happen before haha.

 

[Onmyoji]

As for the number of rp goes, no. I know my limits and as much as I hate to refuse people who would like to rp with me I would refuse. Unless they suggest some ultra rare fandom rp that I will go out of my way to make an exception for (but that is borderline impossible).

As for being overwhelmed by other stuff - yes it happens. Sometimes I promise I would reply at specific times but real life gets in the way and I can't reply. I feel bad about it but life takes priority and in this case I try to explain the situation to rp partners.

So if I feel overwhelmed it's mostly due to external circumstances rather than rp themselves.

 

[Sibelle Grey]

maybe you make too many promises you can't keep of activity

Me tbh.
I go through periods where I'm online twice a month, and there's really nothing I can do about it. Circumstances change. I started most of my roleplays during my last two years of high school and now I'm going into my second year of college, and it requires more effort on my part, which translates into more time. So seven roleplays may have been doable once upon a time with constant replies, but nowadays, they slow down.

How I even got to that many roleplays from a core three has everything to do with the words "new" and "shiny". A roleplay idea can hit me like a truck and there was a time when I practically had to do something about it because of poor impulse control. I'm more wary now of the 1x1 search thread for that very reason. I learned my lesson and no longer take up new roleplays just because they seem cool, I'm a solo one-shot-writer these days when a new verse strikes, but I don't wanna take the risk and find myself overwhelmed again because I suddenly have five decent-sized replies to crank out and they have to be perfect. If I can't devote the necessary time and effort to a roleplay, I leave it alone. learn from your mistakes ok

But much like Lord Aphrodite said, I know the feeling won't last because someone's likely to drop one or I'll find that our styles don't mesh and I'll drop one. Things have a way of balancing themselves out. And if they don't, I balance them myself, because there's nothing worse than that feeling of having bitten off more roleplays than you can chew.

 

[Necessity4Fun]

I try not to... I've once pinpointed my limit of RPs to have at the same time to 8, lately, I've been dropping it to 4 or 5 alongside AEGIS, which is a big HP where I take part into multiple threads at once. The problem is, no matter how careful I am, I'll eventually let things accumulate because Anxiety and Depression make my reply rate a bit... erratic. While I normally try my best to reply after the max of a week, it's not possible sometimes and this is where things start getting difficult. I also try not to take something too out of my comfort zone on those 4 or 5. If I do, then I'll try to have less RPs simultaneously so I can give it the attention it deserves. It may be out of my comfort zone, but I still wanna do a good job at handling it.

Yet, with all of that in mind, I did once burn myself out completely, earlier this year. I made the mistake of accepting to take on ghostwriting for somebody. They were sick and their character was the villain for an arc in the RP and no one else seemed up for the task. The other option was skipping over the arc completely and I felt like that was really wrong since so much effort had been put into it. I didn't want the story to suffer, so I took the offer...

I failed to consider how stressful that would be entirely.
First, me, with my annoying perfectionism, went through every single of that person's posts as the character looking for unique writing marks and quirks of both the writer and the character. Our writing styles were quite different and I didn't want the feel of the posts to change that much. Having that done, took me a day, it was time to effectively plan the post, write it out and review it before it went up. I also made important 'backstage' questions to the player, whose place I was 'keeping warm' so to speak, every time they showed up on discord.

I got two different posts done as the character. Now, it wasn't solely hard-work and stress, I did enjoy the process quite a lot, but I certainly wasn't keeping up with it fast enough and that fact along-side my current tribulations with college were really getting to me. I also had my own two characters to post for while the arc was going on. Then the player announced they were back, I was relieved and perhaps because I was nearing my stress limit, I assumed they would pick it up now and I was done.

They did not, I didn't post either. I think this is where the camel broke its back.
I felt guilty about it, like, extremely guilty. I still think I caused that RP to die that time and that's honestly awful to think about. I couldn't bear looking at RPN anymore, or that RPs discord server. As some of the players started assuming the RP was dead before I could even decide myself enough to post, I felt worse and worse about it, eventually leaving said server because the sight of it made me anxious. RPN started making me feel anxious too and there was also the college project I was completely failing at even conceiving an idea for, after a month of being left with the assignment.

I couldn't think anymore. I think my brain shut down overwhelmed by so much. What followed was a month of nothing but really mundane and mechanic tasks because my creativity had gone into a full lockdown. I could barely make my order at the usual convenience store at some point, struggling to remember the most basic things such as whatever I went there to order. Life became a Panic Attack day yes, day no. Sometimes day yes and day yes. I started pushing anything that gave me anxiety away in a desperate effort to feel better. Eventually, there wasn't that much left for me that was considered 'safe'.

No one heard of me at college, I was only keeping up with some discord servers, muting the others so I wouldn't feel guilty about them. In fact, I think I wandered through new places and met new people at that time because it felt like the part of the world I knew was just that threatening and scary. I got into Pokecord, was completely addicted to the point of catching every single non-legendary pokemon of the Pokedex, just in a month.

It took me a really long time to open RPN again (welian, she's AEGIS' GM, was testing the RPN server's bot at the time, I recall that receiving the notification for a PM made my anxiety spike again to the point I was forced to leave the conversation to calm myself down), it was even harder to start writing again. I kept hating the post I was writing, feeling like it was all over the place, it just felt extremely off to me. Finishing it was a hassle, things were progressing at a snail's pace and making me that more frustrated about it.

I don't think I'm out of it yet, but at least I'm writing and getting things done again. I've managed to catch up with the RPs that did not die during my moment of inactivity, I've signed up for some new ones too. I still think sometimes productivity still crawls down to a halt and it still makes me frustrated, but at least it's going somewhere.

College though, I'm done with it for the semester. I needed a break from it, felt like I couldn't go back without freaking out. I'm working on getting things done in the mental health department instead, seeing a psychiatrist today actually, I'm nervous, yet hopeful about it.

So yeah, maybe I should have been more careful? But to be honest, maybe it was inevitable. I had too much going on in too many aspects of my life at the same time. It was maddening. Had to crash down at some point and maybe I'm glad it did, I might not have actually stopped like this had it not.
I'm too stubborn, I don't like to admit that my thresholds of energy, motivation and focus are just that different from other people's. I hate to be the weakest link, to need special treatment, to give my mental health issues as excuses (which they are not, but still feel like such).

I just desperately want to do the same things as everyone else with the same difficulties! But then I end up overwhelming myself like that, taking a lot more than I can chew ^^'

 

[Tove]

Not anymore. I'll take one or two roleplays these days as I don't have time to be having more than that. As much as I have a love of roleplay I have to have a balance between real life and it real life is above anything so yeah no twenty something roleplays will be done by me.

 

[Beckoncall]

I'll admit that sometimes I do -- but I always make sure the RPs I love the most know that either I'm going to be preoccupied but definitely coming back, or let the natural tendency for some RPs to die bring things back into balance. I have an RP on here that's survived for years and I've had dozens of side projects competing with it. If I bite off more than I can chew... I sometimes have to make a hard decision, especially to pass on new RPs that I'd really like to be a part of...

 

[Apis]

I used to do this a lot, and it was a difficult habit to claw my way out of. In the end, I think what helped me overcome it was realising all the missed chances it created. When you take on too much, you can't devote a lot of your time or energy to any of your other projects or roleplays, and you can't achieve your full potential there.

I basically imagine how much better some of my favourite experiences might have been if I hadn't put so much else on my plate, or tried to get it all done so quickly. I guess it comes down to the choice of quality or quantity in the end. Patience is a hard virtue to learn and I have a lot of trouble with it myself.

Some people prefer to experience as much as they can, which I understand, but sometimes it's better to take it slow and actually make your work perfect, or at least not rushed.