The nice thing about having kept up this blog for over three years is that when I’m feeling anxious and out of sorts about something or other, I can pull up the archives and discover that I was complaining about the very same thing two years ago, and that I was eventually able discover a solution to my problem and move on. Right now, I’m at yet another point in my life where my most recent finished work is making me cringe in comparison to what I think I can accomplish right now. Interestingly, this was also the case in September 2006. Of course, after I wrote that particular post, I went on to create… *goes back and counts* …five more interactive experiments since then. At the time, I thought I was improving leaps and bounds over my older old stuff, but now I’m not so sure. I mean, yes, I tried a lot of new things… but did that make my work any good?

I’m also at a point where the stories aren’t really coming to me. Or rather, I can’t come up with a new, original story that I’d like to stick with for any length of time. This tends to make me feel inadequate as a creative person; if I’m not being creative, then what use am I to the world? At a point like this, I can theoretically “remake” some of my old stuff to make it more polished, but I have a surprisingly strong aversion to actually doing so. Perhaps it’s because of the way I think of my work at a given period of my life as a “time capsule”. I don’t want to mess around with the content, and I find the idea of doing a direct port to other systems/engines to be completely and utterly dull and not worth doing unless someone’s giving me gobs of money.

Ah well, at least I’ve got Stage! to keep me busy for now. And DeathSpank too, for that matter. Both are things I know will end up far superior and polished in comparison to my solo stuff. There really is something to be said about having other people around to complement your strengths and weaknesses with their completely different strengths and weaknesses. I just need to get over the idea that I always have to be coming up with things on my own in order to be properly recognised and respected.