Life got COVID-19ish on my part of the woods, and I had to abandon this little project of mine. Truth be told, the Rolling Girls review I did wiped me out. The whole “I’m gonna do a review in my iphone” plan backfired hard, because it made me ran into a wall. With a combination of real life problems, it took me awhile to resume my TPAB stint. But, I’m here and I’m about to power through the rest of this list.

No, I didn’t forget about this project. At this point, you should all realize I am just a lazy f*ck. 1000 reviews? As if. Let’s finish this list now though. Sorry for the delay.

1. The Burnout is Real
2. Death of the Author
3. A Personal Rating Scale
4. The Influence of the Director
5. Say thanks to your lurkers
6. The Appeal of Bad Anime

7. Hitting the Wall

I guess this can also mean being stuck in a creative rut. I mentioned burning out and how you can’t continue blogging because you just killed you passion for it. Being stuck in a rut means you want to write, but you don’t know what to write about or how to start writing about something. I wanted to liken it to hitting a wall, because there are ways to go over that wall but it will take some time. As I mentioned before, I hit a wall or got stuck in a rut when I was doing this list. I’m also sure everyone gets stuck in these ruts from time to time. They want to keep writing and ensure a daily blogging schedule, but things just stop. Your hands just don’t know what to write about.

The reasons is varying, but its often about your motivation tank running empty. Personally, this happened because engagement in your blog is minimal, so you often fear of writing more knowing you’re just shouting into the void. Often times, you’d lose motivation because you’ll visit other people’s blogs and their traffic is busy. Often times, you just simply ran out of topics that you want to write about. With a combination of this and the lack of readership, then the rut is simply in viewing distance. Now, honestly, as a writer, plunging in that rut is normal. The creative process has its bumps and bruises, and every setback is its own learning experiences. I personally know ruts are created by the author themselves. It’s a manifestation of their fears, setbacks, weaknesses and it just claws at them and drags them down. Just like burning out, ruts are normal. Allow yourself to get stuck in it, because these are temporary.

With burning out, the ideal cure is to stop. With creative ruts, the ideal cure is the opposite. Since it’s mainly a lack of motivation or the creative juices not flowing freely, the simplest way to get out of that is to fill it right back up. This means that you’d have to let that little insecurity go a little and read other people’s work. Personally this is hard for me, because I want to have others be inspired by me and not the other way around. I know it sounds stupid, but the lack of motivation is often greased up by others inspiring you to move. I review anime, but I get a lot of ideas and inspiration from movie reviewers. I’d read their work and see how it stacks up to my own perspective. If you’re doing reviews, I’d recommend visiting CInefix. They make top ten lists look intellectual and deeply thought out. Actually, youtube is a good place to start since you can just let it play it in the background while you do something else. To be completely inspired by anime though, I’d visit Beyond Ghibli. His look on In  This Corner Of The World is so incredibly well done. Whenever I watch one of his works, it energizes to keep going on my own stuff.

The creative rut is not that big of a deal, really. As I said before, we all get stuck in it. A fresh perspective or a good shot of inspiration usually takes care of it. The important thing to realize is that as you take inspiration from other people, your readers are being inspired by your work. It’s a creative cycle, so it flows constantly that no rut can ever be permanent.