Blog Update - Doldrums

Oh, I was supposed to do a blog post today?

I've been falling behind on this lately, and really, there's no good reason for it. I still have, er, at least two or three more projects I could write about quite easily. But it's been a while since I did a blog update, and I'll play nice, post some screenshots from random projects I have worked on throughout the year and never finished or shown.

Because it's been a year since all of this started:

Really it started with PokeHearth, but with Planet Zoo shown above, a project started around this time a year ago, something clicked and I just kept producing stuff. Things which deserved a spotlight on their own.

Small projects, large projects. I had the time and the need to work on something creative, and this is what came from it. I still have this need, too. Coming home after work, I am plagued by thoughts of colleagues and clients, what-ifs, regrets, hopes - and I need, more than ever before, to work on things like these to get away from it all. To recharge through creative work. Really, few feelings are as great as spending an evening writing code for a tree, and then seeing them come up like below:

There's no guarantee, of course, that the things you work on will work out well. That's kind of the trouble with this blog. It has a tendency to celebrate the product over and above the process. And that's not really what I'm about, deep inside.

Of course, it's cool, you want to stand there, show things off. But personally, looking back on these strange stranded projects, I am filled with a feeling much greater than the bragging-rights of the finished product - the knowledge, self-assertion of ability.

If that were the case, and only that, I wouldn't even need a blog, though. But I do, for a different, slightly less internal reason. It's been a great experience, seeing people write about being inspired by this work - that's what I want, to help others create and believe in creation, as others once have inspired me.

I could wax poetic like this forever. I hope this is just a doldrum I'll find a way out of by myself. I'm not sure. Right now, everything is just hard.

Yesterday was my birthday. By some strange stroke of destiny, I had a decent group of people put together though I originally had not invited any of them for the day. We stood atop the crumbling wall of a medieval castle and looked out over this strange city I have now made my home. Just a month ago and a bit since I moved. I can't believe it.

That's my dissertation, by the way. This, too, is a creation of mine. It just took so much longer than any of the other things I have shown off here.

I think the only conclusion I can reach is that I ought to continue this. I just hope that next week, I will be better prepared. Of course it's fine and it's fun to just write a stream of consciousness piece like this. But the kind people who show up here deserve better. And really, I too want to create.

But I am happy that I finally got the time to show, as I have often thought necessary, all the failed prototypes that will have to exist for each functioning post. And these are far from the true amount. There are more failures, most not even being worth showing off. So many more. So know this: If you try and you fail. That's just natural. You might've come a bit closer to succeeding next time. But only if you do try again.

Something something don't give up something something all you need is to believe in yourself.

Stay tuned for stuff about pokémon!