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Those seem like healthy and constructive ways of dealing with the downs.

There's a saying in moviemaking: "if it is easy to make, it will be hard to watch!"

I've always pondered that line, but it might be true -- to an extent. There's definitely also been times when creation just flowed for me and it led to something pretty worthwhile.

Personally, I don't think I have a lot of deep experience with the downs because, until now, I've never really had to be reliably creative. So, I've taken the opportunity to go deeper, work on myself and things like that -- just take my time. Now, with a weekly poetry series, I might have to familiarize myself more with these downs. Fortunately, I'm far ahead of schedule!

With that said, the poems are based on people anonymously submitting their greatest love and fear, and if any of your lovely 100 subscribers should want to contribute to what I'm doing, here's a small anonymous form :)

https://forms.gle/8LnzT9ZBTXWmSkGM7

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I didn't know about that line about moviemaking, but it makes sense to me. After all the thing Edmund Catmul said comes from Pixar, which is moviemaking, he just phrased it a bit differently..?

I hope you won't experience too much of these downs! It might depend on how intense it is for you to write a poem as well. For instance I often find it easier to make Space Deer comics than to work on games. I think because I can move on to the next strip so quickly, as opposed to a game which takes weeks or months to make. Maybe you would feel it more if you wrote a story?

Cool that you are two months ahead! That's about how far ahead I am with Space Deer as well. Hope you get some more submissions!

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I'm not sure how widely spread that quote about moviemaking is or who said it or how it was said. I actually think that I may have heard it from James Rolfe, "The Angry Video Game Nerd." Hehe...

There won't be too many serious downs for me, I hope. As long as I have submissions -- that's the thing I really depend on. Beyond that, the "format" is always the same (similar to a comic strip, I imagine) and I'll always have a starting point (people's answers). Now it's fine, but it's hard not to think ahead and try to prevent this from ever becoming a stressful thing. I'm stressing about potentially stressing, you could say. :)

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Oct 9Edited

Are the downs useful to you? Why act on these feelings and give them validity, rather than meditating and letting them pass until you're trained to never feel them? Surey they are part of your process for better or worse and therefore useful else you'll cast it away.

When I was in production mode for my game, I worked 10 hours a day on it for weeks. I didn't have time for doubts. I let them go. I kept thinking about how the game could help people, and that I'm not to live forever.

I do have a logical plan in place for doubts: if this game doesn't pick up steam by maybe December or January I'd be happy to nuke it (turn it into a singleplayer paid game (with paid DLC for self-hosting to play with friends)) and start my creative journey over for better luck. Until then, I have things I want to do with it to make a stronger game and portfolio item.

I made a cooler trailer for my game with some animation :) https://youtu.be/KsiXvZKPfMM

> [The failiure would be] To just hypothise about making stuff instead of actually DOING IT.

I like that you think this way because I feel similar with my things :)

Your drawings look great; spacedeer and sketchbook.

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