the end of october // pixelheim

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about "progress" lately and what it means in the various aspects of my life. And writing this now feels a bit ironic, or fortuitous depending on how you want to look at things. I find myself coming to a point where I just kind of need to shut up and do things. So it almost feels like a "waste" of time working on this and writing this right now.

But I know it isn't a waste. Entries like this are exactly why I am doing something like this, this is why I'm working in public. This is the stuff I want to share with people, the struggles, the complications, trying to get out of your own way. All the fun stuff that makes any sort of creative work messy.

So another month has passed, let's check in with our progress. Let's be honest up front, things have stalled a lot. Life has gotten busy and I only expect things to get worse over the next few months. The end of the year always sucks and there are endless distractions. From holidays to family. It's provided an extra layer of distraction here in New Zealand too. The way the school year works, summer break here is from the week before Giftmas until the beginning of February. So there is a over a month of children wrangling in the near future.

Don't get me wrong, this definitely isn't a bad thing. However, from an objective perspective it is something that causes productivity and the ability to work on projects like this to come to a crawl. This is one of the reasons I've mostly been focusing on preparing myself for the break and to get things moving for 2026. We build the infrastructure now, make the space for work to happen now, and take advantage of it being there when the time comes.

That all being said I need to be less precious about things. I have a habit of doing something I call "Educrastination" - where you find "one more" thing to learn that would be helpful for the project you're trying to work on, so you push working on the thing back in order to learn something new. This turns into an a feedback loop where it just amplifies over and over again and you find more and more little things to learn that you never actually get started. So I have to make a conscious effort to avoid that space.

So this is where we stand right now. I'm most of the way through the documentation for the Evennia MUD Engine. Admittedly, I haven't worked on it in a while now. So I think what I need to do is just jump in. I can pick away at the tutorials and stuff. But I need to actually start trying to put things into the game and plug in things and see how it works and where it breaks and see where we get with it all. I need to stack things, break them, fling them around, cram things where they don't fit, and see what kind of coherent mess I can make.

I want to get things in the hands of potential players. And my current methods aren't getting me there. So it is time to change things up a little. I'm also going to get back into posting some things on YouTube again, so we will see where that takes us. So we're left with the current fuzzy objectives:

Increase Ass-In-Seat Time - I need to put myself in a position where I can work on something or make progress on a regularly, scheduled, basis. Even if it's only 10-15 minutes, that adds up. Get your ass in the seat and your hands on the keyboard.
Set aside time explicitly for "learning" - put a cap on what we do versus when we put in the work on the thing. Learning how the systems work *IS* a good thing that is worth doing, but we need to actually start doing something with it all.
Check in with what I'm doing - Stop and look at what's in front of you. The goal is to be in the moment and be more fluid with my progress. Having an ugly and broken thing that manages to do what we are trying to do is a good thing. We can improve it later. None of it is permanent.
Keep sharing and share more - There are some things I want to do with this. I'm not sure where it's headed yet. But I do want to share some parts of the process on YouTube, and I'm thinking about doing some live streaming while I'm working. Yes, it will slow me down, but it's a way to keep me accountable and work toward the goal of developing in the public eye - so to speak.

So yeah, that is kind of where things sit right now. I've stalled. Things aren't on the rails, but they are sitting next to the rails, ready to be put back on. So my goal right now is to get things moving again and work on making progress on things. So here goes nothing.

Take care of yourself, and I'll see you next month. That is, unless I get one of the other things off of the ground. We will see how that all goes.