The lure of the new.

New ideas are exciting. Having an idea for a new game or a new feature in an existing project generates a lot of enthusiasm in me. If only those ideas were easy to execute! If only the path from idea to released game wasn’t so gruesome and slow!

Ironically, but probably not coincidentally, it is in the midst of such difficult and slow productions, that new ideas pop up and come to tease us, make us impatient to get the current one over with and start the new one. Or to change the current one so that the new idea can find a place in it. Or, if it’s an idea for a new feature in an existing project, to drop all the tedious but essential work in favour of trying this new and exciting idea.

Of course, every exciting new idea turns into a gruesome slow production at some point. Making new new ideas pop up and distract us. I feel like one of those abused women you see in television shows and movies: their man is no good, he beats her and she knows she should leave him. But she loves him and always comes back. In fact she begs him to stay even when she knows that it will only end in another beating.

I used to think that inspiration was a curse. It gives one new ideas but life is too short to execute all. And ideas distract from work. And only work can lead to finished results.