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About this deadline...

Name:	Thomas Buscaglia
Date Posted:	Feb 07, 2007
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I've spent the last month scrambling to hit a moving target and it's been driving me absolutely bonkers. We all read these posts over and over and they're all "scope yer game" and "plan shtuff out" and "the last 10% is 90% of the work", but it really drives it home when you're sitting at your desk browsing the forums because you'd rather do just about anything other than look at that monster project you love that's sitting wide-eyed and grinning at you from a window just beneath your browser waiting for you to force that last week of work into it. The kicker: I desperately want to.

I don't know if it's my chronic procrastination bleeding into my life passions or preemptive empty-project-nest syndrome, but I'm having a hell of a time just trying to get my eyes onto my IDE. Just so nobody gets the impression that I'm getting paid to sit around and flick boogers, I should mention that I've been working fifty to eighty hour weeks for the past month and a half. Not because I was told to - in fact GG is one of the most lax companies I've ever even heard of - because I wanted to. Really, because I needed to.

I may not be the brightest bulb in the basket, or the most rational, but nobody who really knows me would hear that I'm not a passionate person. When I get my hands on a project like this current one, I'm all about it. Maybe to a fault. Now I'm tired and frustrated and ready to walk away from it, when the amount of work left, if the hardest parts were an all-out barroom brawl, would amount to no more than a friendly tickle.

I don't know what I'm going to think from one minute to the next. As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I'm a pretty fickle person. Right now, though, I look at all the work that went into this project and the state I'm in and the state of the project and it just gives me one feeling. That feeling is best described by a phrase I probably shouldn't publicise, but in my head it sounds a little something like this:

"F*CK YEAH!"

I don't regret one single sleepless night. I made something that I'm proud of and nobody can take that away from me. It's a small achievement, but it's mine. It was my first project with a new language built on constantly changing tech and after almost four months now it's nearly complete. I pushed it right up to the edge and decided I needed more edge, so I built it. All that's left to do is stick the flag in it, put it on the conveyor belt, and go take a freaking nap.

I guess I'll have to wait and see how I feel about it a week from now, because I might just be halucinating from sleep deprivation at the moment. I just felt the need to vent that.

Thanks for reading.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	11/29/07 - Torque X 3D Beta is here! 06/14/07 - Introducing TXB! 06/09/07 - WTF is a clipmap? 04/10/07 - Something to look forward to... 02/07/07 - About this deadline... 08/13/06 - GG: Thanks for everything 06/21/06 - Interning at GG

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Todd Pickens (Feb 07, 2007 at 16:42 GMT)

Good luck Thomas.

I have worked on a few projects like that, and it can be a real roller coaster.

I personally have found that you can only push so much before the you start doing more harm than good, not to the project necessarily, but to your self. If you push yourself too hard too often, you will wake up one of these days and realize that you just no longer care about the job the way you once did.

Thomas Buscaglia (Feb 07, 2007 at 17:06 GMT)

Yea, I've been catching that same advice at the office too. In fact, I took a day off last week and it was schweet. It's just hard when you're this close to shipping. I'm definitely looking forward to having a more relaxed schedule so I can work on some of the side projects that have been eluding me.

Anton Bursch (Feb 07, 2007 at 18:22 GMT)

What you are going thru is what happens to EVERY single creative person in history. Give it a rest. You'll start feeling the urge to finish soon enough. It's like sex. You want it bad enough to actually pay for dinner and be nice to the girl, but then once you've done it... you couldn't care less about it... for a while... but then a few seconds later you are ready for more. It's just how passion and desire work in life.

I'm kidding about the dinner and nice to the girl part of course.

Dylan Romero (Feb 07, 2007 at 18:46 GMT)

...I don't want it.

Chris Calef (Feb 07, 2007 at 18:57 GMT)

Hang in there Thomas! I feelyour pain.

@Anton: ROFL, that's a pretty funny analogy. Were you kidding in that you _don't_ actually want it enough to pay for dinner and be nice to her? Hehehehe.

The question is do you want it enough to stop working, that's the real question.

Thomas Buscaglia (Feb 07, 2007 at 19:07 GMT)

@Dylan - HAH! I knew someone would get the title.

Now, about this shovel... ;)

@Anton - I would never bed a chick who's too cheap to buy me dinner. I gots standards. If you're interested, I'm registered at Burrito Boy.

Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Feb 07, 2007 at 19:29 GMT)

Great title ;) and I can't wait until you release it. It was off the sweet chart when I was still there - can't imagine what it's become in the mean time. I hope there's fire now.

Dan "Nerseus" Jones (Feb 07, 2007 at 22:35 GMT)

I think those projects that are "so close" but unfinished come down to fear - I read that somewhere, some procrastination book or other that I didn't finish :). For me, the following analogy worked: picture yourself having to cross a gap in a rooftop that's 20 stories up with a thin ladder. You can go slow and take your time and you'll make it, but the fear factor is daunting. Now picture yourself crossing with a safety net (experience for example) and you have no problem - you may even run across the ladder.

In reality, I've found that once you get a successfully implemented project out of the way, the next project comes easier. The 2nd one is a bit easier to finish than the 1st and the 3rd is even easier. You develop a knack for realizing scope creep and ways to avoid it. The whole process of releasing a product becomes less daunting.

So, just buckle down and get the 1st done and join the ranks of those of us that have completed a project to implementation!! It's not easy, but it's VERY satisfying and takes the fear out of the process.
Edited on Feb 07, 2007 22:36 GMT

James Wiley (Feb 08, 2007 at 17:26 GMT)

How much is it?

Thomas Buscaglia (Feb 08, 2007 at 18:41 GMT)

@Dan - Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

Cliff (Feb 08, 2007 at 20:14 GMT)

Honestly, I'm just taking comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one who suffers from this. ;-)

Tom Buscaglia (Feb 27, 2007 at 07:28 GMT)

Thanks for the window into your world...it makes me proud. Can't wait to see your opus!

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