Null Parameter

Last night, after putting the kids and wife to bed, I was sitting on the couch, debating what I wanted to do for the night.  I always have a giant list of movies to watch on Netflix or a pile of games a mile high that I need to delve into, and neither of those take much effort to do.  After a long day I, like most other mortals, revel in the idea of relaxing, letting my mind unwind and just do absolutely nothing.  My conscience, on the other hand, got the better of me.  I knew that if I didn’t work on my side projects when I had the time, I never would, and they’d never get done, so I should make good use of my time and actually do something.  Naturally, the fun side of by brain attempted to make excuses on my behalf…

“It’s cold downstairs in my office.”

“You’re right,” I thought.  I really don’t want to ice over, but if I can find my slippers quickly, so that my toes don’t freeze to death, then I’ll go work.  Of course, at the time, I assumed that my slippers were on another level of the house, where I wouldn’t easily find them, and therefore I could go on my merry way, click on the TV and turn into a zombie for a few hours.  Little did I know that my slippers had another plan in mind, because when I stood up from the couch to go “look” for them, there they were, across the room from me, almost directly in front me.  It was like they were just watching me, and waiting for that exact moment.  The moment when they could say, “HA! I got you now. Go be productive.”

In reality though, most everyone will need these little nudges in the right direction, be they from inside yourself or a friendly hint from a personified household item.  We’re human, we falter.  Heck, sometimes the break we get from that stumbling can be a good thing, because it gives us time to regain our composure and come back with a fresh mind.  The key to being successful at any project isn’t about being infallible and working non-stop any chance you get; the key is about always coming back, motivating yourself to get the job done, and to have fun doing it.

I’ve been meaning to start this for a while and I was just outside mowing the lawn, lost in thought and decided that I would take the leap and actually dive into it.  When it comes to indie development, I’m about as indie as it gets.  I develop all of my ideas on my own, independently, I implement just about everything on my own, independently, and I fail in just about every instance all on my own, independently.  For most independent developers that’s the general story of their life, and the one that you don’t hear all that often because nobody wants to hear about how a thousand different people failed in a similar manner.  Many people want to blame the hardships of indie developers on “the system” or “the man” or some other conspiracy about how the little guy is perpetually kept from obtaining their dreams.  I’m really not like that, I think if you have the drive, right attitude, tools and support then anybody can strive to fulfill those dreams and become a great indie developer.

Obviously I have to say all of that a little tongue in cheek because you’re here, reading this, and I really have nothing to prove that I’m right in my thoughts.  I’m still a nobody with really nothing to show for my efforts.  That’s why I am writing this though, not to just help you out, but to help myself.  Same as everyone, I need to understand my faults and work through them in order to better myself and actually get some shit done.

This first ‘article’ in the series is going to be about something that I have been struggling with recently, passion.  I truly believe that if you want to get something done, and done well, you need to be passionate about it.  For some that might be an obvious statement; you should want to work on something if you’re doing it for fun.  What isn’t so obvious is what keeps that passion alive.  I’ve worked on numerous projects, most of which have slowly died out for one reason or another.  None of those projects, while possibly great ideas, have driven me to come back, time and time again, to finish them.  Why?  Because passion had died.  I had no real connection to the ideas beyond the fact that I had thought them up and put work into them.  That has help me to realize that real passion lies not necessarily in great ideas, but in selfishness.

Yep, you read that right, greed is passion.  The best way to generate a strong connection and passion for an idea is for that idea to be something that you want.  Focus on something that will help you or directly make you happy.  If you plan to continuously use something when it is done, you have exponentially more reason to finish it.

Given that information, I’ve decided to temporarily shelve my previously mentioned project, ‘Bevel Suit’, in favor of something that I want to be selfish about.  This is being done for more reasons than just that, such as the fact that BS would have had to start out with much more minimal functionality due to some serious limitations that will hopefully be nullified by the creation of my next project.  And then, someday, the two will tie into one another and thrive together.  Since Bevel Suit was stuck with the epic initials BS, the new project will hence forth be dubbed simply ‘POS’.  Don’t worry, just like Bevel Suit, there is more to the name than meets the eye.

That’s all I have for now.  Hopefully soon I’ll have more to tell you about POS and many more things.