51–60 of 123 posts
Also a solo creator. I'm not making money from it, but I would like to eventually. My motivation is two-fold: 1. I am a perfectionist and can't leave things undone. 2. My creation work is my sanity preservation against my actual obligations. Needless to say, my motivations won't apply to 99% of people. Everyone is going to be different. Find your motivations, but don't assume they'll be the same as some viral blogger…
Also a solo creator. I'm not making money from it, but I would like to eventually. My motivation is two-fold: 1. I am a perfectionist and can't leave things undone. 2. My creation work is my sanity preservation against my actual obligations. Needless to say, my motivations won't apply to 99% of people. Everyone is going to be different. Find your motivations, but don't assume they'll be the same as some viral blogger…
What are your major road blocks to making money right now?
When it is done (and I've gotten to the point where it's only months away), the roadblock will be my inability to make a sale.
I do not approve of the use of the term “creator” here when they may believe they are creating but they are actually working inside a box (machine) or job parameter which inherently is derivative. As in, I can whistle a song I created on the guitar because I pull it out of thin air - can he do the same with his “creation” as it were? Stay in your lane.
It's unclear to me precisely what your definition of creator is, but it seems like one nobody else shares. It has to be something made without constraints? Or something that can be effortlessly reproduced later? Or something that is 100% non-derivative? Do you really believe the songs you write on the guitar are non derivative?
Where do you think the line is?
It seems obvious to me that an artist is a creator.
If a person is stitching together Wordpress sites for someone else’s content are they a creator? A configurator?
If a person is creating excel spreadsheets are they a creator?
What about if they are just tallying numbers on a calculator?
What about if they are just counting inventory?
First, I'm easily distracted. But, the real issue in working on something, for myself, that is engaging, and pushing back the "WTH are you wasting time on this for?". It's all very fleeting. It's not like I have some other burning passion to work on instead, some "if you do this you'll make lots of money instead of those toys you make thing". I don't. But, especially being older, it can be a trick at times to perseve…
I feel like I would be more motivated if I were to work on something that helps people. Making money is fun at times, but (especially as a Christian) I can't ignore that voice that selfish gain is mostly meaningless.
Just sharing your knowledge can be a hand up to someone in a bind, even a complete stranger on the internet who doesn't even give out an upvote.
Everyone's gifts are different, and none of them are universal.
You can be the customer, which helps. But other customers, ideally paying customers, is motivating assuming you have a goal of making some money.
> I'm not on traditional social media so don't have that eating away at my attention, but Hacker News is pretty good at derailing my day. How relatable! " - Coffee and a walk with my partner - Gym for about an hour - Journal and write - Work block 1 (about 3 hours) - Lunch and chill - Work block 2 (also about 3 hours) " That looks fantastic!
I enjoy the cyclical development pattern where I spend a LOT of time - not quite gamedev crunch time, but occasionally close - building the first main production iteration. Then I get to relax a little and balance adding features and reducing debt. And finally I reach a maintenance and support phase which typically requires very little time and effort. That last phase is when you'll find me traveling, "living the good life".
But even during the early intensive phases, having the freedom and authority to decide what tools to use, where to physically work from, and even what time of day to work is of such value that the heavy workload is less painful than big company in-office alternative scenarios.
As for routine, exercise is indeed a big benefit and contributor toward success. Some office work situations have good workout opportunities, but many do not. And if the daily commute takes a lot of time, then exercise is one of the things that tends to get cut or squeezed down to a level where it doesn't provide much benefit.
First, I'm easily distracted. But, the real issue in working on something, for myself, that is engaging, and pushing back the "WTH are you wasting time on this for?". It's all very fleeting. It's not like I have some other burning passion to work on instead, some "if you do this you'll make lots of money instead of those toys you make thing". I don't. But, especially being older, it can be a trick at times to perseve…
What’s the project? Can you share it here?
It's a "simple" GUI wrapper around a fractal planet generator (that I did not create).
I'm not very good at GUIs. I don't have the visual eye, I'm lousy at detail. 99% of the time I'm happy with something that spits out the answer I want awash in a sea of debug logs and printlns. I have a great tolerance to ignoring all of that.
I bogged down on the installers because I loathe configuring build tools, hunting down plugins, tweaking configurations.
It ended up as 4000 lines of code just for the GUI part, which seemed surprising. But that's the nature of it. GUIs are just heaps and gobs of detail, and events, and wiring it all up.
But I did it, it's "done", even if imperfect, even if the box has rounded corners as I shoved it into the outbox. And its got all sorts of things I wouldn't do again, which is useful.
Getting it out was like an interview with Columbo, always "one more thing". One of my "last minute" changes took me a month.
I was considering doing a YT video (or series) just going through this thing. Seems small enough, but addresses "real problems", rather than just examples, maybe there's value seeing it all together. Some examples of, perhaps, what "not to do".
Share and enjoy!
A crucial point the post misses is the distinction between motivation and discipline. Ultimately it's easy to work on things when they are fun and exciting; but motivation will only last for so long... once that happens it's the discipline that needs to take over for you to keep progressing forward.
In our industry, it's also very easy for the undisciplined person to succeed. You get a new job, it's exciting and the problems are new and motivating. After a few years the shine wears off, it becomes boring, you understand all the problems and they start to seem tedious. You find it difficult to really engage. But fortunately, the demand for software developers is so great that you can easily find a new job, and th…
Both external and internal rewards. And external punishments, Ie on review, pay cut, fired etc.
> I stay active on a Slack community of devs and creators in my country, as well as go to meet-ups and events in interesting communities How does one find these supposed Slack groups and meetups? I live in a major metropolitan area, but the meetups I've been able to find have been underwhelming.
In the absence of any good ones you start one?