In search of a true motivation.

[IceD]

So, I'd like to ask everyone about this certain thing - how do you find motivation for your own projects? Or rather, how do you stay getting motivated and being able to work on any project at all, neverthless it's one's own, somebody else's or a joint/collaborative work?

I'm having some serious issues with it now. It's been awhile and will propably continue. I have a few more or less developed ideas, both smaller for starters and bigger reserved for the latter I'm working with and want to develop further in the future. I have some plans and most importantly, I wan't to finish one of the shorter pieces soon, but it seems I am in a middle of a faith crisis now, a creators one of course. It seems the more I work, the less I see them as something that will be ever finished. Moreover, I'm starting to feel plain tired of it, but just can't let it all go and vanish - I've already put too much effort to let it all just "dissapear". I'm preety confident I can finish them If only a little bit more of har work could be involved but this self burn-out is just to much to cope with... As for the rest, I'm preety tired with all my life, which somewhat also influences my motivation. My sister is propably going to start studying abroad our hometown this year and she won't be able to work on the art-side anymore. And some of late family issues really get on my nerves. All of this leaves me preety concerned and having less and less faith if I will be ever able to finish anything at all...

I would like to ask, if maybe I am making some mistakes, and if so, what should I do to cope with them? Are there any good ways to keep oneself motivated despite all of these problems? Or maybe i'm overdoing things? I'm open at preety anything on this matter, also I'd like to discuss this furthermore. And if someone is in same situation, maybe we will be able to help each other. Please help, I'm quite in despair now

[LVUER]

Ah yes... perhaps you are experiencing "writer's/artist block" right now. No, no... no need to be embarrassed since it could happen to any one. I just experiencing it early this year and hampered the Dreaming art.

This is one of the reason why Lemma make the rule... make a short game that you could finished. This is because the longer your game, the bigger possibility you will abandon it in the middle. It's a common knowledge not only in VN, but also manga or other creative works.

How to deal with it? If you already a professional artist, then you have to charge forward in full throttle. No other option (except you could get a holiday or something). If not, then it's simple... just don't do your project for some time being. I don't know, perhaps a day or two, or even one week to one month... until you feel the urge to create/work again.

And about the motivation to keep my project going/finish it? Here's my recipe:
1. Make a plan. Like you're going to finish it in one month, no matter what happened.
2. Make a goal. Make sure you could see the finish line. If you couldn't see it (or could finish in time you have planned in number 1), it's alright to cut some corners or even cut everything that too difficult to do now... if you don't tell anybody, they won't know you take the easy way... well, as long you finished the game. It's the most important thing, isn't it. Revision could always come later.
3. Reward yourself. No body want to do something for nothing. Reward yourself from a simple pat on your own back. A well deserved vacation. A brand new Intuos (if you have budget)
4. Put your finished project in place everyone could see. Reap praise from everyone. It's a good morale boost, you'll need it... at least I need it.

Well, I hope this could help. Get well soon ^_^

[Jake]

So, I'd like to ask everyone about this certain thing - how do you find motivation for your own projects? Or rather, how do you stay getting motivated and being able to work on any project at all, neverthless it's one's own, somebody else's or a joint/collaborative work?

The first thing I would suggest is the maxim "finishing something is more important than starting something": it's not a maxim I completely live by myself, but it's useful from time to time - starting new projects is often tempting, because it's something new and fresh, but firstly they'll distract you from the older project, and secondly newer ideas might act as a good incentive to reward yourself once you do finish an earlier one.

(Of course, some people prefer to have two or three things on the go at once so they can switch betwen them when they get bored; adapt to suit.)

It seems the more I work, the less I see them as something that will be ever finished.

How playable is your work in progress? One thing that often seems to help me is to try and make sure that my WiP is playable - to some degree - as early and as often as possible. So the first thing I'll do on a Ren'Py project, as soon as I've got the original plot summary written out, is take that into Ren'Py and script it up so that - even if it's just the narrator reading out what happens in each arc - there's something that I can step through. Then I'll do very rough mockups of all the graphics I need and drop them into the relevant places in the script.

As I work on bits - writing or graphics - I can drop the newly-finished thing into the game-in-progress and instantly see it there and working, which I find helps my motivation 'cause it gives me the feeling of progress, rather than reminding me of how much stuff there is left to do all the time.

I would like to ask, if maybe I am making some mistakes, and if so, what should I do to cope with them? Are there any good ways to keep oneself motivated despite all of these problems? Or maybe i'm overdoing things?

I would also suggest that deadlines help a lot. I've worked more consistently and faster on things for NaNo than I have outside of NaNo, for example. I'm not an incredibly fast worker by any stretch of the imagination, and I'll often get side-tracked or distracted when I'm sitting around at home working on my own projects, so I find that deadlines help me stay focussed. I also find that I personally sometimes don't treat a deadline as a real deadline unless somebody outside of the project knows about it - so if you're this kind of worker, it might even be worth announcing your project with a realisitic-but-not-generous deadline to motivate yourself to finish.

[curry nochi rice]

here's my two cents.

as said earlier, make a schedule....
I'll show you my schedule:



(a Schedule for a bunch of high school graduates entering college...we're cramming since we only got one month left before classes starts and everything should be reviewed before we probably enter hiatus)

and last,
show them some inspiration, in this case, more like deterring them from getting bored.

others:

Learn from your mistakes.
If you have something in mind, write it immediately even though it's not really needed for now... (Works for me)...you could puzzle it together for later
and a thing I learned from scale modelling.... keep a can of decent, cold beer close....to prevent a model (a WIP in this case) from flying to the nearest wall (ffrom being aborted...)

[Strum]

I too suffer from lack of motivation from time to time. What I tend to do to recharge my motivation is to look at, read about and play other people's visual novels.

[The Nightlinker]

Mind if I enter my two cents?

In my opinion, starting on a project is something that you should feel ecstatic about. If you don't feel super-crazy about it, chances are you will either abandon the project or you will end up with something you're not satisfied with.

And like LUVER said, it really is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about. It happens to everyone. I have an obscene amount of stories I've never finished in my journals.

[XFBoi]

I have also lacked of motivation from time to time. Until recently, the main reason was because I tend to write the boring parts first, thus making me feel like I want to quit before I can even get the real thing lifted off the ground.

What I do to get motivated though, is to look for a few people that's interested in the genre I'm writing for (In my case, psychological thriller and mystery). By asking people if they'd like to see a psychological thriller and mystery visual novel, I'll feel more excited to write one if I know that they're interested, since having an audience to write for will be my main reason for making a visual novel. To stay motivated, I write the fun parts down first. This way, it'll make the boring parts easier to do and also feel somewhat less tedious, since writing the fun parts first will keep me excited enough to keep on going.

[FeatherThief]

Personally for me I start writing short stories or making new character ideas. Anything to clear the mind of the project for a little bit but not something that big so that it sucks all your attention. Then after you have cleared your head you can start on it again and it feels a bit fresher and you can get into it again. Treat making it like reading abook, no matter how good sometimes you just have to take a little break and do something else to relax before picking it up again.

Feather Thief

[Enigma]

Well, I'm a bit of a novice, but I 'll offer my perspective. I just watch, read, and listen to everything I can. I more so try to not copy the story or themes, but try to recreate in other people what I felt at the time. Am I makeing sense? For me its all about how the story feels.

[Sify]

I can't say that I'm in exactly the same situation, as I'm not really the game-making type, but I write a lot of stories. As a different medium, I guess this might not really help, but at the moment, I'm finding a heap of inspiration from short stories. Like, 500 word things. I did a couple of projects where I had to write a complete story in 50 words - it was a real challenge, but after finishing, I had a full idea of what else I would put in it - I am now expanding on it; I've written up twenty three character profiles and drawn seven different maps of a 'new world' in less than a week. What I mean to say is, once you've gotten it, you'll know.
But I just got totally off topic. Urm... what works for me is reading other things. When I think of my own things, I've found it's really helpful to me to think of it as happening around me - I don't mean hallucinating, or anything, just think of it once in a while, but don't continue from where you left off - really know your world and your characters, and let them have time to do whatever the hell they want - then see what evolves from that. Also, in regards to finishing - most successful writers start at the end and work backwards. Seriously.
I hope that helped a little - I know it's different, sorry. Good luck! And I'm always up for bouncing ideas around.

[\Nish/]

For me, I like to work at certain things whenever I have the "feel" for it, or the "groove" if you will. Whenever I force myself to work without these feelings, chances are they either come out half-assed or just an epic fail. I do, though, plan small exercises like drawing a sketch or writing a short story to get myself going and see if I can get inspired. Then if they all failed to inspire me, I wouldn't force myself anymore. After that, I will just relax, go out and have fun with friends, taking my mind off of the project for a few days, looking at other things and other people, and sometimes these are all I need to have my motivation back.

As far as projects go, I haven't started to make anything yet, but I have some ideas already. I think it helps not to set a schedule because whenever I do that, I keep planning bigger than what I can actually do and it drags on and on. What I'm doing now is simply do on a regular basis, no matter if it's just a paragraph, a sketch, or even a few words. I find that by doing something everyday and knowing that I did, makes the progression smoother.

Well, just my personal opinion and experience. Hope this helps and things get better for you.

[LVUER]

Actually, you make schedule to keep things from getting bigger. Because you have a deadline to meet, you couldn't add more stuff if you don't have time. Some times... no, most of times, you even must cut out the content... if you strict to the deadline.

[\Nish/]

Actually, you make schedule to keep things from getting bigger. Because you have a deadline to meet, you couldn't add more stuff if you don't have time. Some times... no, most of times, you even must cut out the content... if you strict to the deadline.

Yes, I'm aware of that and most people prefer a schedule to keep things tidy. I did that before in hopes of making things manageable, but I guess I'm a little different in the way I work and a schedule didn't work for me. To each of their own, I guess.

[LVUER]

Well, I myself never used detailed schedule. I will never follow them strictly anyway... and it kinda waste of time to spent several days for several months of project schedule. This is the schedule I used for NaNoRenO 2010:
Week 1: Rough story, characters 1-4
Week 2: Characters 5-8
Week 3: BG
Week 4: script, coding

I got late though and I barely finished the 8th character by week 4. So I switch the BG into filtered photos so I could stick back to schedule (script and coding).

[almond]

LVUER, your week by week breakdown is useful. Thanks for sharing Such a breakdown of tasks can be handled easier in making a short game, even when you're pressed for time methinks. This little newbie will give it a shot and see how it goes ^.^;;;