Made no progress whatsoever on visuals today despite my best reservations. I got distracted during the day once again. It’s beginning to really mess with my morale. I don’t know why I’m having so much difficulty just starting it, but the more I delay it, the more it starts to bear down on me.
I spent the evening planning out the combat. Right now, it’s really technical (although a lot of it is hidden behind the scenes and, what will hopefully be by release, engaging writing). I really like the implications of it, but I’m not sure how well it’ll pan out to actual implementation. The bottleneck here I think will most certainly be in designing the enemy encounters to accommodate the various tactical considerations and available avenues of action. I’ll keep it on paper for now, and maybe even crunch some numbers soon. (The idea of being able to finally work out some formulae quite excites me.)
There is still, of course, the unaddressed issue of the monthly update. I absolutely do not want to skip this one — both because I had already failed to publish my (admittedly shitty) draft last month, and more importantly, because I feel it is in bad spirit and auguring an ill omen to miss the first update of the new year (which is not so new anymore, I know, but still). I’m leaning way too much on having those finished visuals for it, when in reality, I doubt anyone cares. How even could they, after all, since the project itself has not even been formally announced?
I’m trapping myself here, I know. I need to get over my own baseless anxieties. But I just feel like I have so little to show for myself these days. So little to justify my continued persistence in these manners, at least externally. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll come to me tomorrow. I doubt it, but maybe.
Didn’t really get any work done today, which leaves me in a tight spot for tomorrow if I am to still meet my goal of having new visuals done by the end of the weekend. I keep on getting distracted: today, I managed to make some breakthroughs in Breakpoint, and even managed to publish a new mod. However, it came at the cost of having dedicated the entirety of my afternoon to sorting through reams of obscure hex tables, meaning I had no time or attention whatsoever to dedicate to my actual work. I am too tired and too distracted all the time…
Felt a bit more motivated today. Woke up early, before light. Spent until noon working on some edits for a friend. I spent the rest of the day working variously on some Breakpoint ports, and gathering resources to begin working on Plan. I had a call with Sam this afternoon which was very productive in helping me reorient my priorities. I’m going to force myself to draw something tomorrow for the game. I’ve been stuck in a cycle of useless procrastination for weeks now, I just need to get something done at this point. Once the initial momentum is established the rest will come more easily, I know it for sure.
I’ve been having a pretty difficult time working the past few days. Not like I was spending any at all working before, but at least the past week, I’ve been “trying”… I’ve been suffering from some kind of extreme lethargy that makes it difficult even just to sit up straight at times. I originally had planned on spending all day working on visual mockups for this month’s update, but I got distracted by pre-planning and started to slip into a spiral of unproductive malaise.
I feel like all I’m missing these days is the initial impetus. The work is right there, laid out clearly in front of me. I’ve done all the preparatory work to satisfaction, I know what needs to be done — I just can’t seem to actuate it. The truth is, I feel really weak these days, not just mentally, but physically as well. I haven’t really been going outside or eating much. I spend most of my days sitting in front of my computer or lying in my bed, with barely any movement in between. The thing is, I actually do feel pretty creatively motivated. I’ve just lost all my strength and can’t seem to get back up. My indolence has hardened into a habit, I fear. I need to break out of this somehow…
I’ve spent the past couple of days with my room in complete disarray. What initially started out as a routine cleaning has turned into a much more involved and elaborate reorganisation of years’ worth of assorted cables, papers, conduits, and debris. I’ve been making progress slowly, in incremental bursts. I spent most of today and yesterday figuring out how to fix my monitor’s display, which for some reason just inexplicably stopped registering the input signal from one of my computers. It’s frustrated me to no end, especially with no identifiable point of failure. I originally though it was an issue with the DVI to HDMI cable that I’d been using, so I purchased a converter, which did not fix the issue either; and finally I tried a VGA input, which also did not seem to do anything.
If finally got it working again today though, with the strangest solution: the original flat panel only properly displays at native resolution (1280×1024) when another monitor is connected via HDMI to the second output. I don’t even know what to do with that second monitor to be honest: it’s a small, cheap Specter I purchased many years ago at the start of college for my PS4, whose primary lasting value is sentimental more than practical. I’ve been trying to convert it into a vertical orientation but I’m missing screws and washers for the VESA mount and a sufficiently-sized hex key to loosen the tension in the monitor arm… slight inconveniences and impedances at every step.
I have a good feeling though about when I’m done sorting all this stuff out. Sitting at my desk this evening when I finally managed to get the screen working again, I felt a surge of motivation wash over me. Somehow, I’m optimistic that it will last a bit past today.
I’ve been feeling really lethargic lately, and terribly uninspired. I don’t know what’s come over me, I thought I was doing pretty well for a bit… I’ve just been working on Skyrim stuff in the meantime as I hope for my constitution and strength to recover. I’m going to try to clean my workspace tomorrow, I think it’ll help.
The year began auspiciously, and in good spirits. I feel quite happy and optimistic going into it, and I hope very deeply that I can do better this year. I have a strange feeling that it will be possible. I’ve been in a slump for a while, but I think I can turn it around. I want to turn it around. I want to get better this year.