Usually when I write these, I focus on theory and the abstract.
Well, kind of. I suppose it is most interesting to me to hop between the abstract and the concrete, whether it is in fiction or non-fiction. You know, tell a concrete story, and when we reach a point that an abstraction could be gleaned, we pause and glean it. Sort of like real life, isn’t it?
I suppose other times I do the opposite. In fact, in my non-fiction I seem to tend to do the opposite. That is, start in the abstract and then hone in on concrete examples.
Regardless, today we’re going to do the former, despite this being non-fiction, simply because my May has shown signs that it is finally, after about two years of waiting, time for me to return to a more eventful sort of life.
The last major event I had was moving back from Asheville, North Carolina to here during the flooding.* Since then, I’ve had a time of slowness and a time to hone in on my skills. Growth as a human came either from interpersonal relationships, skill development or introspection. This is a great contrast from my more career and “adventure” sorts of events. Everything here has been excellent for me, but it seems likely that these monumental events may begin again.
Why? I can’t entirely say, other than a stream has begun. That is, sequential events one after the other.
What is important is not necessarily the events, but instead their sequential nature.† There is a stirring, if you will.
Hmmm… I realize in saying this, I do indeed struggle to look back. My natural desire already is to take this post in the direction of “what comes next?”, and I will, but it is worth noting that looking back just doesn’t interest me other than to analyze trajectory…
So what’s the plan now? Well, first of all, I intend to break my lease early and move to a location (still in DFW) for about 9 months. After that we’ll move to Charlotte, NC.
As for work, I’ve realized that I’m still treating this whole process as a sprint‡, rather than a marathon. So now the goal is to turn what I thought was a sprint into a marathon.
In order to do this, I need income, and I need to generally keep myself enjoying life. So what I’ve done is forced my brain to imagine what an average week would have to look like if I wanted to be able to continue with the same week for a decade.§
Here is what I realized I need:
- Income: Obviously I need more inflow than outflow. This has not been true for the past couple of years.
- Living space: I’ve realized it is utterly important to me to have a living space that is, even without any furniture or decorations, beautiful on its own. Actual size does not matter, but it must be beautiful.
- Work time pacing: I love the grind. I love long hours. At certain stages this is absolutely necessary. However, at this current stage I am going overboard. During the week, I am literally either working, sleeping or eating. With rare exceptions for Church groups or social events. This just can’t be the case for long.
- Being fed into: Generally speaking, I struggle quite notably in my allowing myself to be fed into. I much more enjoy outputting rather than inputting, if you will. But I need to consume art, nature and the likes. Even in social events, I tend to pour out much more naturally than I am poured into. That is, trying to guide rather than be guided.
- Type of work: I realized I am spending a good ~75% of my time working on audiovisual assets. Whether this is 3D modeling, pixel art, music or sound effects. Just so much of my time. And what’s bad about this is that it isn’t what I enjoy doing. It is necessary to the degree at which I do it, but it is not my passion. My passion is writing, design, program architecture, composition and business operation systems. If what I am working on does not fall under these categories, I’d rather outsource it.
So, in order to alleviate these, I am doing the following:
- Freelancing again part-time. You can find me here
- Moving out. Breaking my lease early. Oh my, but it is worth it.
- Continue the grind fully on Monday and Tuesday, while allowing myself reasonable hours on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Saturday is purely for grand scope thinking and visualization.
- I’m going to begin limiting my social outings considerably. Trying to do more 1-on-1s and such. This (should) give me time for art viewing and such. I plan on putting a TV back in my apartment once I move as well. This will make me more likely to consume higher quality content during meals.
- As rather mentioned in the problem itself, I intend to create style guides and spec sheets and outsource when I can. My desire to “do it all myself” has gotten a bit out of hand, and this should alleviate this.
…And that really is all of this week’s article. However, I have a bit of extra time to write, and with it, I’d like to talk a little more about my secondary passion¶ in interactive media: “toylike design”.
That is, design that allows for expression rather than challenge.
This sort of design, I imagine, pairs very well with Modern Visual Novels. Though, it is worth noting, I don’t believe I’ve fully explored this in any of my works thus far. I mean, the user could drop paint buckets on the ground of the locker room in Everything I Know, and Everything I’m Ever Gonna Know, but that was… Simple.
I guess, also, most of the mechanical elements of Everything I Know, and Everything I’m Ever Gonna Know were intended to be “toylike”. Unessential and to be played with rather than won, if you will. The problem was that there was clear “better or worse” in baseball, and obvious “number goes up” in the stock, thus making them feel “winnable” despite their being unessential.
If I were to do the baseball again, I’d likely set it up so that there was a fielder for each of the choices, so whichever ended up with the ball would determine the user’s choice. This would be much more toylike, and shows how I am evolving as a designer.
Regardless, “toylike design” is something I’d like to be more intentional about going forward. To the extent that I think I may add this to my phil page.
*Well, I suppose I’ve had other events in isolation, but this was the last in a stream of disruptions. †To dispel curiosity, however, it is a mix of savings diminishing, rejections, chronic illnesses, car vandalism and general dissatisfaction. ‡To be fair, however, I really did think it was going to be a sprint. A sprint to finish Everything I Know, and Everything I’m Ever Gonna Know. But when I finished that race, there was no finish line… §In contrast, what I’m doing now I maybe would be able to sustain until the end of the year… ¶My primary passion, of course, being focused on text.