Welcome to my update article for Winter 2025. It is an overview of the work I’ve done, projects I finished, and any other interesting developments during the months of January, February and March 2025. Let’s see how it went!
Webshop(s)
At the start of January, to the surprise of many including myself, I launched a small Dutch webshop. I repurposed my oldest domain to set up a kind of “test store” for me to learn how all this works. To play around, make some merchandise, and make all big mistakes before they can actually cost me. (That oldest domain contained my Dutch blog, before it moved to this new website, and was originally set to expire in a few months.)
I’ll admit this was a bit of an improvisation. When I decide something, I really go for it, and I had that Dutch webshop up and running (completely verified, 50+ unique products/designs, tested, etcetera) within a week or two.
But it wasn’t completely random. I’d been considering creating an online store for years. And this year, with me growing older still and my income growing smaller still, I decided I just had to pull the trigger. I made a plan for a much larger online store, which would sell lots of my existing work (digital goods) + new designs (physical goods).
That (mostly Dutch) webshop was just a nice first step to take. It taught me a lot, changed my designs for the bigger webshop for the better (a thousand times over), and so I continued.
Because that webshop hasn’t launched yet, I can’t give much details about it now. (Not because of secrecy or whatever, but because it won’t make sense until I can show it.) Below is a very succinct summary of the work.
First, I designed the skeleton of that web shop myself, then once in a while spent a week improving it and adding lots of necessary features. (At time of writing, the entire custom-built online store is fully functional. It’s not “done”, as it still has many “nice features” I’d like to add, but those are all optional.)
Then, alternating with work on the website, I created the actual content.
A good chunk of it meant uploading existing work. That is, projects I’d already done, designs I’d already made. One major category of that store will contain the source files for a lot of my work, or extra products based on existing brands of mine (such as Wildebyte Arcades).
But the majority of the work meant creating new things. I created a bunch of …
- Escape room experiences. (Some thematic, such as one to try with the family during Easter, and some that could be played any time.)
- Educational material. (Through Pandaqi Tutorials, and thinking about education since I was a little boy, I’ve always had the idea I could design some fun extra activities or worksheets to complement school. It took my money-hating brain a while before realizing that I could, you know, sell that work.)
- Quizzes. (In many shapes and sizes. Pub quizzes, analog or digital, more educational trivia things, etcetera. Me and my sister have been designing quizzes for New Year’s Eve for years, I even wrote my own software for it. Again, it took me a while to realize I could sell that work.)
- Merchandise. (My little test shop taught me a lot about that. With the lessons learned, I could use my existing brands or “franchises” to turn them into physical goods too)
- And more miscellaneous or experimental things.
In due time, I might remove some things I’ve been offering for free all this time, and put them (as paid products) on the store instead. For now, however, I wasn’t ready to take that step. I strongly feel, for example, that my tutorials and print-n-play board games should forever stay free and accessible.
I’ve mostly created new things (even if based on existing designs/work of mine) for the store launch.
Similarly, there are some “next level” ideas for which I need to figure out the monetization now. A next step in terms of skill, quality, size inside the general creative areas in which I work. But that’s getting into 2026/2027 territory, and I can’t predict the future, so let’s forget that for now.
Most of all, here’s the deal. I don’t have money. As such, I’ve always worked hard to stay lean, and minimal, and be smart about how to create and host my projects. This means that the online store is cheap for me to run … but not free, of course.
I have about 1–2 years of runway before I’d probably have to call it quits. With current numbers, and some margin for error, that web shop would have to earn ~40 dollars a month in profit to pay for itself.
That’s why I wanted to launch the webshop soon (this year), but not too soon, and launch it with a good catalog of products.
This is where I spent the majority of my time this season. Creating everything needed for that online store, and creating the things sold on it. As you’ll see below, I mostly worked (far) ahead on other projects to make sure I still met all my deadlines.
Writing
Saga of Life
I was falling a bit behind on my Saga of Life stories (cycle #4), so I caught up to exactly halfway that cycle. For those who don’t know, the Saga of Life is a free website filled with interconnected short stories. I write one “cycle” a year, which means 10 short stories that move through the 10 time periods of that world.
Because this is an ongoing project that is subdivided that way, it never really “sleeps”. I can work ahead for a bit, but I end up writing a few stories for this every season.
That’s on purpose. I designed the whole thing to not overwhelm my hyperactive brain, but also to make sure I never completely lose momentum. So far, it’s been achieving exactly what I designed it to do.
Although, for this cycle, I did a larger single batch with the five first stories. (Instead of writing story 1, moving away, coming back for story 2, etcetera.)
Why? I looked at my plans for the rest of the year and thought “ugh, it’s going to be REALLY annoying to switch back and forth between Saga and those other projects”. Experience told me that these specific kinds of projects do not “mesh” well, which means switching between them every week would probably cause me a lot of motivation/momentum/focus issues.
So I thought, halfway January: let’s just get as many Saga stories out of the way now.
Doing so also brought a few more “breakthroughs” about the Saga. I realized some (major) changes I wanted to make going into the future. For example, which ideas to pick and which to push to different projects. You write and you learn!
I’ve given myself basically until the end of cycle 5 to be flexible and allow the Saga to grow in different ways. Thus, at the end of next year, afer 50 stories, I hope to have figured out the “definitive” tone, style, story length, topics covered, etcetera.
Similarly, after writing cycle 5, I might switch to “1 cycle every 2 years”. Writing 10 short stories (basically “novellas”) every year was doable the first few years because I saw the Saga as my main (writing) project. This is not the case anymore (it’s Wildebyte Arcades, see below, and I obviously have the added work for the webshop). A pace of 5 stories a year is far more doable and sustainable. The important thing is to keep the Saga going each year, no matter the pace. Because I know myself—once I completely fall silent on a project/idea for several years, it will never be picked back up.
Wildebyte Arcades
Besides that, the Wildebyte Arcades received a few new books. I write 10 of them a year, but release only 5. So I’m ahead of schedule but still want to keep good pace. If I manage to keep that up, then the entire Handheld Disk (all books where our main character lands inside a mobile/handheld game) will be done next year! (And then it will take 2 or 3 years before all those books are actually in the hands of fans.)
I did want to take a little break, though. After the first 10 books, I noticed the stories become a bit “same-y”, while I disliked some of the mistakes I kept making again and again. So I waited before writing book 11 (and on) for as long as I could.
Those two projects are my main “ongoing writing work”. To keep things fresh, and because I simply want to get my ideas made as quickly as possible, I regularly switch to smaller writing projects. Things nobody is expecting and that could release whenever.
In this case, I still had 2 (shorter) books to finish from last season. (You know, when I spontanously wrote the first half of two different books around Christmas.)
That left little time for anything else. The only thing that is progressing steadily is … a secret project. I’ll probably share more about it in a later update, once I am certain when and how it’s going to be finished and released.
Games
Same old, same old.
There are a few large video games that I’ve always wanted to make, but now is simply not the right time. Terrible working circumstances and hardware, very risky, by far the MOST work for the LEAST certainty of income/career, etcetera.
Then there are tiny video games for which I already created the structure. But these are clearly lowest on my priority list, so other stuff keeps being made while these are pushed back.
In the end, I made a few more board games (for release in 2026; this year’s game release schedule is already full). And then I mostly made “game-like” experiences for that webshop, such as escape rooms or educational activities.
Music & More
I’ve often said that I am actually a musician. And I really mean that. There are nearly 500 song ideas on my hard drive, many of which I feel are really good and should be made.
But as the renovation keeps being a disaster here at home (because of the main builders/architect, not my parents or us), there is just no way. I can’t even stand somewhere and hold a guitar, that’s how little space there is. Let alone get a relatively soundproof (and echo-free) room to record something.
The urge to record music again remains strong as ever, but I keep searching for ways to make it happen anyway and finding none.
I even have music attached to BOOKS now—sometimes an entire musical for my most important novels—and I really want to let readers listen to that too! Music just adds so much to anything, both while creating the story and while enjoying it. Within my Saga of Life folder, for example, are about 10 tracks attached to main characters or main events (many yet to happen in the stories). But they’re cursed recordings made with my phone, of me playing the guitar and humming the melody as well as I can without waking anyone else :p
Personal / Anything else?
This period has been a struggle, for many reasons. My overview above might give the impression that I was very productive and achieved a lot, but I really didn’t. Yes, I obviously managed to do some things over the course of ~90 days. I wanted to list the few things I’ve done here, but that list is still too long, I noticed. But compared to my usual productivity—compared to a full-time job, or the progress needed to get a sustainable income—it’s absolutely nothing. A few finished stories, a few attempts at products in a webshop, it’s really not great.
The first reason is sickness. The typical flu going around, which hits extra hard when you have no heating, no space, no silence, nothing to actually help you recover. In fact, I became sick on the very first day of February, and as I write this conclusion at the end of March, I still don’t feel like my body has healed. I’m incredibly tired still, with random spikes of fever and a throbbing headache that makes it near impossible to focus.
Which brings me to the second reason: I just couldn’t get myself to work. My brain couldn’t do the thinky part :p I couldn’t decide what to do, and even if I had decided, I couldn’t enter any sort of focus. The past three months, I basically flip-flopped between a week of “finally I’m able to pick a thing and finish it” and a week of “I can’t do anything and I’m just wasting my days and I don’t know why/how to solve it”.
It is no secret that, about ten years ago, I basically lost my ability to enjoy things or want things. As such, it has always been hard to be motivated to do anything, and the question “what do I want to do?” or “what would bring me joy?” is just completely irrelevant. I’ve always worked based on habits, discipline, trying to make logical choices, and very rarely following a brief feeling of enjoyment.
Well, there are limits to that.
For years, I was able to tell myself “just keep doing things and eventually you’ll find something you like/be successful/find your place”. And so I did. I was able to keep creating stuff. When something failed, or didn’t sell, or I didn’t like any part of the process, I could at least tell myself “you tried” (and you learned/practiced/know how to do it better next time). Now I dare say I’m quite good at writing novels, designing games, creating and maintaining websites, etcetera. But there is still not a single drop of enjoyment there, so what now? Where to go now? What to work on next?
After finishing (almost) all my planned projects for 2025, I thought I might have time to try something else. I came up with this plan for an online store and how it could sell the things I made. A good plan. A plan that would take at least this year and the next to complete. An ambitious plan, but also the only way I see myself earning a proper income.
And when I look at that plan, my brain just screams “too much work”. I don’t have the feeling of “I want to make this” or even external motivation like “if I create this, I’ll earn good money”. It’s just a big, big pile of work that I don’t want to do.
And so, the third reason I could barely do anything (which is really an extension of the second reason), is simply: my body and brain are clearly done. Too tired. Too long without enjoying anything or having any sort of reward for working this hard.
I tried many things, as always, to get “unstuck”. I mostly did so in March, when it became clear that “taking a few days off” and “taking it easy” was not going to solve anything. (After several days of mostly sleeping, exercising/going outside, then playing games/watching films … I still feel equally tired and unmotivated. What a surprise.)
For example, I started working on other places. There are some locations around my home (such as the local library) where you can just sit with your laptop and work, for free. I tried going there. The end result was the same: I still didn’t want to work, but now I was also tired of traveling there, packing/unpacking my dinosaur laptop, and without access to things like my standing desk.
I also started planning “non-work” as much as I plan “work”. So, for every item I put on my to-do list (“create images for that escape room”) I’d also put something that is SUPPOSED to be relaxing and enjoyable (“watch episode 2 of serie X”). This is, again, not a terrible idea. It allowed me to be productive one more week … until I was back where I started, and I didn’t even feel like putting on a show or game.
I even bit the bullet and finally bought a new, functioning computer (after 12 years!). Well, guess what, it didn’t 100% function as intended (upon arrival) so I had to walk through the whole annoying process to return it. I tried to work with it for a few days, but then I was back to where I started again. I now had an expensive modern computer that could open up my software really fast and finally allow me to work/draw/record again—but I had absolutely no motivation to do any of that, so after creating 3 or 4 products for the online store, I completely fell silent again.
At this point, I had two thoughts.
- Something is seriously wrong with my physical health. I am just not healing from anything anymore. As stated, I have never “recharged” or “gained energy” from work/hobbies/exercise, but now I don’t even recharge from sleeping and eating anymore. I went from running 5 miles every day to barely being able to breathe for a while now.
- Minor changes to my workflow or habits are not going to get me anywhere anymore. Doing “the right thing” (enough relaxation, good habits, balanced lifestyle, etcetera), at most, allows me to flip-flop between a week of stressed productivity and a week of exhausted resting. Which is both too slow to yield any income and should not be how one lives. As it turns out, this is not a medicine against just not feeling any desire to live for 10+ years.
I hadn’t seen my physician (or any hospital) in years. Precisely because I’d visited them way too often when I was young, and even back then they never actually helped me in any way. (They’d literally say things like “well I see a young man before me who is fit and smart and achieves things, so I conclude you’re probably just a bit tired!” or the famous “just going through a phase/puberty”.)
All this time I refused to take pills. I don’t want to rely on them, I fear addiction, I dislike how much they’ll temper my creativity (and, as far as I can see, basically everything that defines me), I will always prefer solving things by taking away the cause of the problem instead of treating symptoms. Nice principles—just didn’t work out in practice. Yes, I came very far without any treatment, and there have been many simple changes in my lifestyle or mind-set (which anyone can do) that have improved things a lot. I’d still recommend anyone start there, and it will probably be more than enough for many.
But my case is just mind-boggling. Just completely losing the will to live or the ability to enjoy things when I’m very young, due to circumstances I won’t discuss again here, but at the same time being the kind of person who doesn’t really contemplate suicide or stops living. I honestly can’t say I enjoyed any moment from the past ten years, but at the same time I’ve been living harder every day than many others. There’s this spark inside my heart, somewhere, that really really wants to be creative and make stuff and do stuff and make it happen. But it’s just completely swamped by a brain that seems incapable of doling out dopamine.
And so I decided to finally visit my general practitioner again and see if I could get a diagnosis (for ADHD and/or depression) and then the usual treatment for it (that has actually been offered to me before, but I was stupid—or call it naïve and hopeful—and declined).
Conclusion
Pfew, bit of a downer for the end of the article, bit of a weird three months. Even finishing this article just underlines my general point at the end: I had planned to do work today, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, so here I am “procrastinating” by committing my train of thoughts to this page.
Normally, I’d give a preview of what the next season holds. And I’d already start that article and write a bit about things I know for sure.
But now I don’t know. I can only give a very vague overview.
At the very least, I decided to let that Dutch webshop expire anyway. I learned what I could from the experience, it kept me busy for a while (and now you know how valuable that is!), but nobody is visiting or buying, and my busy brain can’t handle an extra website and maintenance for it. This means the webshop was online for about 4 months. I made about 80 products for it, and I expect about half of those will be copied to the “actual” online store. (Which has been fully coded and designed now, but only has a handful of projects right now.)
I hope to finally create a good set of products for that online store. It originally had a launch date at the end of Summer. Many of the materials are educational, so using the “back to school” moment seemed very sensible. But I just don’t think the store will have enough to offer at that time, so that might be moved to the start of next year.
I also have a soft deadline with a publisher about revising a book of mine, so that will surely be done.
Finally, there are some Wildebyte and Saga stories to continue. I’ve written most of them already, so I could get by with only editing and releasing. But of course, I would like to stay ahead of schedule and create some new things.
That’s all for this season. Hopefully, in the next update, I have (positive) things to share about taking the next step with treatment.
Tiamo Pastoor