2381: Awareness is Half the Battle

Remember a few days ago I wrote about my own particular take on “creative block”?

Turns out the simple act of explicitly acknowledging the fact I’m aware of this issue with my own attention span has helped me to do something about it.

In the times when I’ve been working on my RPG Maker MV project, I’ve been considerably more productive than I have been in the past, with far less staring into space and far more in the way of map-making. The current map count for the project now stands at 72, which means I’m well over halfway to assembling the first of the five “worlds” in the game, which is also likely to be the most complex and largest, and so a good idea to get out of the way first. (I know I’m well over halfway because I’ve mapped out what I want the final overall map to look like on paper, and numbered each of the individual “rooms”.)

I’ve also found this awareness to be very helpful when doing actual work rather than just pissing around with RPG Maker. I’ve finally had some freelance work start flowing in again, and I’ve been managing to sit down and concentrate on it enough to get it done efficiently and in plenty of time to submit for the deadline without having to do a last-minute rush on everything. (Even when I did a last-minute rush, I always got stuff in on time, mind you; it was just rather more stressful than it really needed to be.)

Whether this new way of thinking will stick around — and, for that matter, if it’s anything to do with the new anti-anxiety drugs I’m on, which have just about stopped making me feel perpetually stoned now, thankfully — remains to be seen, but I’m going to take full advantage of it while it’s here, and maybe even get a creative project or two actually finished. That’d be something, eh?

Incidentally, I’m not quite ready to reveal the full extent of my RPG Maker MV project as yet, since its very nature is something I’d like to keep as a bit of a surprise for some of my friends. Over the coming weeks as things start to come together, though, you can expect a few teasers of what I’ve been up to. I will, however, say up front that I’ve mostly been using RPG Maker MV’s stock art resources with it (albeit with some lovely lighting effects courtesy of a wonderful plugin), because that always seems to be something that people whinge about with RPG Maker projects, even those just done for “fun” like this one. I am hoping, however, that the story, the writing, the characters and the humour in it will more than make up for my own lack of artistic talent and consequent reliance on provided art resources.

There’s also going to be some great music in it; some of it stock RPG Maker tracks (RPG Maker MV’s provided music is seriously way too good not to include at least some of it!) and some provided by members of the RPG Maker community. If I’m feeling particularly adventurous, I might even compose some of my own work for it, but let’s take things one step at a time, shall we…?