Resident Weirdo, Analysis Paralysis, How to Do Everything Wrong

I have been going through a period of general vexation, frustration, and annoyance, accompanied by the feeling that the world somehow became massively complicated while I wasn’t paying attention, and now I’m totally behind the 8-ball with no hope of ever catching up. This is mostly related to the Big Project I’ve been referencing cryptically on this site, one that I have been wanting to get going for some time now, but that I keep running into roadblocks on.

In the interest of not dragging things out, here’s the big reveal—I intend to do diamond painting videos on YouTube. It all seems so simple when I watch the likes of Cat’s Diamond Painting, Diamonds and Washi, and Emeralds and Fairy Lights. They’re so relaxed and natural, and they just chat away and show off their lovely un-boxings and blithely banter while punching away at their works-in-progress, and it all seems so simple and sweet, and I really want to be one of them. But it turns out that it’s not simple at all. Merely the vague plan of putting up a single, semi-competent, non-embarrassing video has taken months of research, contemplation, and the ordering of specialized equipment that I am still not at the end of. This is not to mention all of the nuances of thumbnails, which are apparently extremely important, the necessity of a production schedule, which gives me a headache just thinking about, and the vast importance of quality sound and light, hence the required new equipment.

Perhaps to my detriment, I’m usually a “jump-in-with-both-feet” person, and I’m not generally prone to analysis paralysis. But the launch of this project feels so overwhelming that I find myself frozen in place, unable to quite begin. I have an overall plan for my first video, but those plans buck the general conventions of these types of videos (I refuse to do the whole “hold every single crackly drill packet up to the camera and call out the number” shtick), and I anticipate that I am going to be the resident weirdo of the diamond painting video world, simply because I always naturally become the resident weirdo of any realm I attempt to inhabit. Which is fine. I’ve accepted that, and I’m okay with it, but ugh. Doing videos involves a type of physical visibility that makes me cringe as a primarily introverted writer, and I don’t have any idea where I will fit in with this lilting, feminine, breathy realm of cutesy dragons and big-eyed goddess adorers.

Despite my trepidation, I ultimately feel like it’s all going to be okay. I have secured my channel name, which in my humble opinion is short, pleasing and catchy, and I think I’m close to having what I need to actually film my first, not-tortuous-to-watch video. But I will be doing everything wrong, just like I do with this blog: I’m not going to post on a strict schedule, I’m going to say weird things, and I’m going to very be clear about my annoyance with the proliferation of grating, pink-and-brown-toned, cutesy witch-themed paintings that have taken over the industry.

Stay tuned for my first official video to come...soon-ish!

--Kristen McHenry