Yesterday was Christmas, and I spent the day leisurely creating stages. I didn’t write a work log, because it didn’t feel like work, and I didn’t get much done anyways. I encountered an icon that made me reconsider the way in which the stages worked, but this would require me to rewrite some parts of the application, and the stages would take even more time to create. I was torn.
But then I had an idea: since I suffer so much creating stages by hand, what if I created a stage editor? Most of the pain comes from editing json by hand. I found great inner conflict in this idea: this could push the finish line beyond my energies. A risky move that could reap great rewards.
I went to bed with this idea in mind, and as I was slipping into sleep I could see that my “early sleep hallucinations” had changed: for the fast few weeks, as I was dozing off, I would hear voices, more like mumbled conversations. But last night I saw imagery: a staircase going down to an ocean. It was like a holograph that gained more realism as I dozed off deeper, and it dispersed like smoke when the verbal mind would intervene.
Suddenly I had a very clear idea of how the game was to be structured, mechanics and all. I opened my laptop in bed and in five minutes sketched what came to mind, then I went to sleep.
In the morning I woke up and saw that indeed this was the correct direction, but I was still not convinced this was a good idea: the downside of the creative mind is that it can’t keep still and commit to an idea. So I decided to spend the day working in this direction, and make a decision by the end of the day.
I went to the library and felt the right way of going forward was to start a new repo and begin importing code as needed. I begun with task with the outmost resistance, something in me was protesting repeating work, and I could barely get things started before lunchtime.
I had lunch with former Method of Action partner María Munuera, we got up to date with each other and then I went back to the library. This time I had no internet access, and I worked through resistance, but soon was breezing through the code in deep focus. I felt this new version materialize, its integrity transcending all manifestations: the design was correct, the code was correct, the interactions were correct, and the work was correct. I was happy to have found the clear indication that this was the right path.
Even though the day is supposed to be over, I’m too excited to let go, so I will get back to work.