First off I just want to say: I released my christmas animation... ON TIME! You can watch it here! (https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/775606)

However, I feel like I just need to talk about what a wildly AWFUL journey this animation was! To begin, I'll start at the very start of it's creation: August!

In early august I had written out the script for the christmas animation and was more than ready to get to work on it. I wanted to start animating the christmas animation early because I knew it was gonna be a long one (10 pages = 14 minutes!) and I didn't wanna be in the space that I've been in the last couple of years, rushing to finish it right before christmas, and then suffering from the worst burnout possible. I was super confident that if I started in August, I would be done before December even rolls around, allowing me to have a laid back month of spending time with family or working on my comic series! It was quite the dream, and I was fairly confident it was achievable!

However. September rolls around. It's a very busy month, and it's safe to say not much work got done there. I wanted ot hit a 3 page a moth quota at minimum, but I remember only completing one page in September. I thought to myself,"hey, I'll pick up the slack later. No worries!"

October happened, I was productive there. I had a good time. All was going well. School sorta sucked though, but I was getting used to balancing my animation and my schoolwork.

But then November happened, one of the most painful months of 2020 (For me personally.) At the start, I was very productive, banging out 3 pages in less than half a month. I was super proud. I was in a position to finish before December, as I had planned! Things were going smoothly, until my computer started acting up. My computer is definitely old, by todays standards, and it started to slow down and get buggy. It was worrying for me, but I did virus scans and I seemed to be in the clear. I have no clue where this random lag and glitchiness came from, but it wasn't fun to deal with. While animating, I'd receive error messages from parts of my computer that I didn't know existed. Apps would crash. Stuff would freeze. I was scared for the wellbeing of my animation!!

This fright was well justified, after one day, Adobe Animate crashed and corrupted all .fla files that were part of the John and Loonof folder. I was devastated. I couldn't find any past export that booted up properly. I had lost it all. It was safe to say I shed some tears over this loss. Not only was the loss of my files bad enough, school started ramping up, and some crazy social developments hit me really hard. I had no motivation to continue the Christmas animation. I just couldn't do it. My friends and family were telling me to give up. Everyone hated to see me in such a sad state over some drawings. I took a week break to think things over, maintaining a VERY pissy mood the entire time (Sorry mom and dad.)

And then... December happened.

Not ready to give up just yet, on December first, I decided to go hunting. I must have backed up the file somewhere. I couldn't believe that I would just keep saving to one location. After a solid hour and a half of searching, I found a file that opened. Unfortunately, it only had half of the work I did, but it was enough to keep me going. I booted it back up and got back to work. I was determined to kick Adobe's ASS. I worked pretty late nights and long hours to pick up the slack, and I was ready for it to be done by the 15th! I was stoked! Staying up late had finally paid off! I was almost done, only a page left, when my computer decided to corrupt everything all over again. I have no clue how it happened, but I couldn't open my file once again. Devastated, I repeated what I did in november. I cried.

But the deadline was too soon!! I couldn't just quit!

So instead of giving myself a week off, I picked up that one openable file that had half my work, and got back to work INSTANTLY. I spent full DAYS in my room just to finish this animation. I wasn't going to let it get me down. I was able to balance school, social life, and the rigorous animation schedule just barely, and it really showed. I was not a happy dude.

However. Around 20th, things started to look up. Remember that weird social development I was talking about earlier? It fixed itself over time. Remember school? It ended because of christmas break. I finally was able to dedicate all my last energy into completing this animation. I didn't have any more worries, I only had to think about work.

And I did just that.

I completed it, just barely.

The sense of completing the project that had become my sworn enemy was the best feeling in the world,

It was the best christmas gift I could have ever received.

I haven't touched my animation tablet since.