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[Graham-]

we were just finishing the tangent. nothing personal.

[Mipe]

I have just scrapped a 60 thousand word draft I've been writing day and night these weeks.

The signs? I believe I began to notice something was amiss when I was half way through; I felt constant nagging, longing to come back a few pages and fix some inconsistencies, plot holes, just fix this and that, so things later on would make more sense.

In the end, after going back and forth several times, I found myself lost and unhappy with results. That was when I pulled the plug, opting for the complete rewrite.

Perhaps I should have thought things through beforehand. Perhaps I should have jotted down some sort of a plan, a guideline. However, I was so engrossed in writing, my fingers were flying. While I was writing, it felt great. But as I progressed, I began stumbling.

Until I couldn't bear to continue anymore.

Doubts. When you start doubting the direction your project is developing into... Well, that is probably an acute sign of the unlikely project completion.

Well, not that is a bad thing. Now I can rewrite the whole thing, remembering all the things I erred at. I'm sure those 60 thousand words will be over before I'll realize it.

Still, it never is good to terminate a project early on. That would be a hit to confidence, which is an absolute necessity for all projects.

Just my two cents.

[Graham-]

Two issues to think about:
  1. Over committing.
  2. Refusing to flex.

There's a strong tendency to over blow the scope of a project when you lack confidence in your abilities. You think of a simple design, are not satisfied with its "power" then expand it in reflex. You pad your insecurity with design expansion. Don't do this. You'll get married to something that you never really believed in in the first place.

Flexing is when you take an idea you like, then pivot it to become the center of something new. Have an RPG with a cool jumping mechanic? What do you like? Just your character and the jumping? Then throw away all that shit you don't like, and make a new game around what you do like.

That's how you turn a dead project into a live one. There is always _something_ about a project you like. That's why you started working on it. Extract that bit and shove it in something new. That way you don't have to start from the beginning each time.

--

To Mipe. When you find yourself consistently hounding details, flipping back and forth over them, this is a sign of a lack of confidence, like there is a deep structural flaw that you are ignoring.

[Mipe]

That's exactly it, Graham. And the blame is on me entirely for not being an organized person; I rarely plan ahead, I typically just wing it, often coming up with unexpected results.

This time, the results were less satisfying than usual. It's always like this, at the end of wing-up, it's hit or miss.

Sometimes I wonder if that is really a bad thing; would it be better to just keep going without stopping, not looking back lest doubts overtake me, planting negative thoughts into my mind.

Finishing the project may actually be more beneficial than scrapping it, even if it is a miss.

[Graham-]

*shrug* that is really contextually dependent. use your judgment. that's what it's there for.

[Graham-]

I find that it's dangerous to destroy a creative explosion, or period of output or insight. You can kill it and lose it. But once you're through it you can be critical of what you produced. Treat fresh ideas like infants, oxidized ones like grown men trying to steal your car.

[Mipe]

To harness the creativity or to let it run wild? I guess the answer to that question is unique to each person; some may strike a balance between the two, directing their creativity, while others may opt for one of the extremes.

In that regard, I consider myself a wild horse, without any discipline but full of passion.

However, to finish a project, one requires at least some discipline.

[Graham-]

Yeah you gotta mix 'em together for results.

I find I am very strong at both. Crazy passionate, capable of structure. I'm weaker at the latter though. Though I love science.... I am emotionally wild, and mentally structured, if that makes sense.

[TomHunt]

Passion alone will only get you so far. It takes vision and a dedication to that vision to make things a reality. Sometimes that may mean letting go of a few things that aren't working out for the sake of getting the rest of the things that are working out to the finish line and out the door into the real world (which is a whole other set of challenges beyond the scope of this thread). You have to be able to make those calls during production and be able to stick with those and move forward.

It's a skill set that you have to learn by doing projects. It's not something you can just read out of a book or on a forum.

[Gregg Williams]

Its all summed up in a classic quote. "Stay on target" and what happens when you don't