Keep Creating

This past week, I hit a wall, but pushed through. Regardless of feeling drained mentally, emotionally, and physically, I continued creating. Game development started to become quite exhausting, so I moved back to writing some days, which helped to keep my momentum going.

Game Dev Dead Ends

Making games is a fun process, but there is a ton of work that goes into even the smallest feature. Seeing what people come up with for projects, both as retail products and just for fun, is fascinating. It also offers a great opportunity to learn about computer programming and logic.

Sometimes, the road is short and a good lesson learned. Other times, my flow of progress seems completely derailed. Working in tech for my full time job makes dealing with bugs a tough process. Staring at computer problems all day makes tackling new ones, even the fun ones, tiring.

The solution, of course, is to work on passion projects prior to the workday, as I see a number of other creators doing. Try as I have, I’ve struggled with this, even more recently. Just a few weeks ago, while working on Eastern time, I still woke up with little time before being on the clock. Losing the extra hour to sleep.

Even considering delays, the little bit of work I started still taught me a lot, so it’s not as though it is time wasted. The project forced me to take a step back and learn some better organizational skills when it comes to game development. A helpful skill which eliminates repetition and the need to re-iterate too frequently.

While I’ve worked on game projects in the past, each one has given new lessons to learn. Lessons I hope to keep implementing on the next.

Running on Empty, But Still Running

The game dev process in itself can be tiring, but over the past few days, it has not been the only thing taking it’s toll. From fitness to work to my personal life, I’ve felt exhausted trying to keep all the plates spinning. Creative work has often been one of the last things to tackle in the day.

Trying to start with little will power left is definitely not a recipe for success. It becomes easy to avoid difficult problems, see above. This is the reason I implemented the “not starting something new” restriction last week. Though, I did cheat a bit last night.

After dealing with some late night work issues, I gave myself the “justification” to go to bed, as I’d be waking up in a few hours to check on things. Looking at my habit tracker, there was just one item left unchecked. I knew all I needed was to start. So, I opened up my list of poems and started writing what came to mind.

Another One to Keep

Few habits I try actually stick, but I want to keep this one going. I’m glad I pushed myself to do something every day. It’s a habit I do, even when the lazy part of my brain starts to whine. Motivation doesn’t last forever, working with or without it is how great projects are completed. Doing something every day is a habit I’m proud to continue. Perhaps one day, it’ll become part of a consistent morning routine.

For my next trial, I plan on doing something I’ve considered for a while. I spent a few days thinking about what I need to do, and was coming up empty. After a particularly tough day emotionally yesterday, I’m going to try out therapy. Specifically, I’m going to try out the service Better Help, which I’ve seen advertised from time to time. Maybe it’ll help, maybe not, I guess we’ll find out!