Sometimes I hate having such a creative brain. I get all kinds of ideas and want to see them through, but it turns into having a ton of half-started projects with a near-zero completion rate.
I have seen that this is common for people with ADHD, which I am almost certain I have.
Here are some of the insane projects I’ve started in the very recent past:
- App Development – I love the idea of gamifying productivity but never found an app that fit my personal tastes, everything was too cutesy or leaning too far into high fantasy. I wanted something darker, grittier, something horror-themed. I started development of an app called Survive the Day. It was during this time I dreamt up Green Matter Studios as kind of a catch-all for any creative endeavors I embarked on.
I got it pretty damned close to launching Survive the Day, but ran into a couple of problems:- I am in need of a comic book artist and don’t want to devote the resources to hiring one out, and
- Developing the app, I know the ins and outs, what comes next, how to cheat it, and so on, so there’s no gamification for me. It’d be just walking through a test run, and not very satisfying.
- Writing – I have always had tons of ideas for stories- mainly horror, some cyberpunk- but never had the talent to actually write them out. I decided, “what the hell”, and went ahead and started putting words to (virtual) paper.
I “published” (using the term EXTREMELY loosely here, when I say “published”, I mean I put it in PDF format and published it on my main blog) my first story in February 2026. It’s far from good, there are a lot of pacing issues, holes in the plot, and tightening that could stand to happen. It came in at just over 50 pages, so either a long short story, or a short novella. If I fixed up the plot and pacing, I could push it squarely into full novella territory but I was just anxious to get the idea out of my brain.
As of the writing of this post, I am sitting on somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 story ideas. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t hardly see or hear anything without it sparking an idea for a story. - DVD/Blu Ray Cover Art Redesign/My Own Personal Boutique Collection – I have recently gotten back in to collecting physical media, primarily movies on DVD and/or Blu Ray (which is its own thing…)
I’ve always had the idea of making unified cover art, mainly for series, like buying and remaking all of the art for, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one, cohesive style across the entire franchise.
That has since expanded and become this unreal project of creating new cover art for ALL of the movies I own (it’s not very many right now, probably in the couple-hundred range) using a common style, and, while I’m at it, creating my own personal boutique label that as of yet is unnamed. - Reading – every year, I commit myself to read more. Last year, I was determined to get through 52 books in a year, or, a book a week. That lasted about a month before I started missing days, extending the amount of time taken to finish a book and traveling makes things a little more difficult too. I do want to read more consistently this year (maybe not “a book a week” level, but maybe a book a month to start?)
So far, I’ve finished A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Unknown by Didier van Cauwelaert, and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. All three were very good, in their own ways. - Body Recomp – With a trip to Portugal coming up in June, I am working my hardest to get in the best shape of my life before we take off. I would love it if I could get under 300 lbs before the trip, but that is a lofty goal.
- Blogging – course, my main blog, Wandering New Mexican, is devoted to the adventures Brandy, Ash and I go on, all the traveling we do, sights we see, hikes we take. With all the traveling we do, that takes up a good amount of time.
- Photography/Videography – I LOVE taking pictures and video. I’m not good at it, but love doing it. I love the process of video editing and the end results. I love tinkering with the pictures I take to make them look at least a little better. Then what? Well, I do have the Photo Diary on my main blog to showcase the pictures I take. I’ve thrown together some videos for YouTube and TikTok but video editing takes a lot of time, and WAY more footage than I ever capture on our adventures, so my videos have, like, 30 seconds of usable content. Would I like to be able to capture more, get a better camera and improve my skills? Yeah, of course. Am I going to? No. It’s a very expensive hobby and I have enough to keep me busy as it is.
- Woodworking – The thought of woodworking is intriguing and I would love to delve into that world, but, same as with photography, it’s an expensive hobby, not just for the tools, but for decent materials to build things out of. I have a few ideas for some… things… I would like to build as I get through the massive Basement Project I’ve been battling for three years (and thankfully am seeing great progress in, finally). When I got to those projects, we will see how much joy it brings and I might dip my toes in it…
- Of course, drawing – It’s been years since I’ve drawn anything but recently got a drawing table. Right now, it’s occupied with a paint-by-numbers canvas of Zion National Park that my in-laws got me for Christmas. I’m working slowly but surely through it and am enjoying it when I have the time to work on it, but, with all of these other interests and such occupying the few hours we have in a day, getting meaningful progress on it has proven difficult but it is there when the itch strikes.
And of course, all of this while I try to manage the household I run as well.
I wanted somewhere that I could document all of these projects and whims my mind comes up with without clogging up my main blog. That’s where this site comes in. It’s sat dormant since I dreamt up Survive the Day and figured, “Hey, this would be a perfect place to showcase my shit!”
It kind of is a studio, after all – an art studio, a photography editing studio, a writing studio… I’ll go ahead and post “catch-up” posts to talk about how I got started in each realm, where I started, where I’m at and where I’m heading. Posts will be categorized by venture (Art, Reading, Writing, Recomp, etc.) and will have individual galleries for each category.
And, of course, I will have to introduce y’all to Grimm, who was born out of another tangentially related venture I tried getting into years ago.
Same as my main blog, I don’t expect anybody to stumble upon this blog, but hopefully, I can keep this one a little more polished just in case someone does decide to show up…
Follow along, won’t you?
-Phil