Dealing with "The Struggle", or how not to get distracted

[Llannagh]

Hi all you beautiful cartographers!

Since I first started out making digital maps almost 9 years ago, I have been always wondering about this: Does anyone else struggle to see a project through to the end? Because I haven't been able to finish a single one.
This is due to many different circumstances. Back in the day I would say slight depressive episodes have kept me from seeing anything through, but since about 6 years circumstances have improved significantly and the urge to create and express myself artistically has increased manifold. I also feel really happy in general.
That being said, there are a lot of things I'd like to try out creatively, like painting (digitally).

Although I managed to get some things started, e.g. the painting, I still struggle to actually DO those things regularly. One would be building my world and painting the maps for it. I either "don't feel like it", or I get started and feel tired after 15 minutes and then it's easier to just play a game or watch something. Ironically, playing games and watching a good TV-series or reading a book get me inspired even more to create my own world.
I sometimes also really "crave" to paint, draw or write, but mostly when I can't, like at work or when I'm in bed and have to sleep (so I can get up early to go to work).

When I have time off work, I sometimes manage to do those things for longer periods of time, but it's really hard. It's like I have to push through a haze or something. This gets even more frustrating when i look at my older projects and can actually see how damn close I was to finding the style I was looking for, or even how close I was to finish a project.

All that being said, this thread is not to be understood as a "cry for help" or anything like it. I am doing better than ever before and I'm confident that I will get to the point where I can get lost in writing, painting, creating worlds. I was just wondering if anyone else has or has had this experience and how they deal with it.

Looking forward to your answers!

All the best,
Llannagh

[Falconius]

I don't know that's pretty much all I do. If you find the solution let us know. :p

Although I have found that posting WIP's here helps, and also has the added benefit of giving you notes on what you were doing and what you were going for if you share them in the WIP posts, so that when you come back to them its not as hard to pick up the thread.

[Greason Wolfe]

For me it is usually one of three things; too many hours at work (the most common), frustration with the project not shaping up/moving along as well as I would like, or too many distractions induced by the project that end up sidetracking me. Always promise myself that I am going to get back to work on a lot of these unfinished projects, but it never seems to happen.

[Gamerprinter]

Nope, no issue here. 90% of my maps are created in 4 hours or less, that 10% outside that have varied based on complexity, but I've never spent more than 4 separate days to complete a map. Noting that since 2008, I have over 1800 published maps, and probably a third of that of not yet published or never will be published maps. Once I sit down, to my preplanned time slot to create a map, I knock the map out. One of my incentives, is while I enjoy making maps, I more enjoy showing completed maps, so I race to map completion. I work at the speed, just slightly less than me starting to make mistakes - so I create art at a high rate of speed, trying to match my mental plans which exceeds my rate of creation. I use to run a graphic design studio for 22 years, as the only creator in the shop, with half a dozen jobs I needed to complete each day. I learned how to work fast. At this time, I cannot work slowly, and wouldn't work slowly. While I pre-plan my intent in creating a map, very often creative ideas occur along the way, that alters my original plan, but fitting a better plan conceived in the making.

GP

[Llannagh]

I don't know that's pretty much all I do. If you find the solution let us know. :p

Although I have found that posting WIP's here helps, and also has the added benefit of giving you notes on what you were doing and what you were going for if you share them in the WIP posts, so that when you come back to them its not as hard to pick up the thread.

I'll make sure to let you know! Posting WIPs helped for a while, but I stopped because I never finished them

For me it is usually one of three things; too many hours at work (the most common), frustration with the project not shaping up/moving along as well as I would like, or too many distractions induced by the project that end up sidetracking me. Always promise myself that I am going to get back to work on a lot of these unfinished projects, but it never seems to happen.

Yup, those are also some of the reasons I struggle with. I think they're connected: I work many hours, then I sit down to actually do what I would like to do but I'm tired and it takes too long for the workflow to kick in... or I get sidetracked by too many ideas at once and then don't know where to start and then it's easier to just watch or read something or play video games. (And then I feel stupid that at age 44 I often still can'T resist the pull of a good video game...)

Nope, no issue here. 90% of my maps are created in 4 hours or less, that 10% outside that have varied based on complexity, but I've never spent more than 4 separate days to complete a map. Noting that since 2008, I have over 1800 published maps, and probably a third of that of not yet published or never will be published maps. Once I sit down, to my preplanned time slot to create a map, I knock the map out. One of my incentives, is while I enjoy making maps, I more enjoy showing completed maps, so I race to map completion. I work at the speed, just slightly less than me starting to make mistakes - so I create art at a high rate of speed, trying to match my mental plans which exceeds my rate of creation. I use to run a graphic design studio for 22 years, as the only creator in the shop, with half a dozen jobs I needed to complete each day. I learned how to work fast. At this time, I cannot work slowly, and wouldn't work slowly. While I pre-plan my intent in creating a map, very often creative ideas occur along the way, that alters my original plan, but fitting a better plan conceived in the making.

GP

Good for you, man! My guess is, though, that through running a graphic design studio for such a long time you were forced to develop a workflow. Also I'm assuming that you have some kind of formal education in graphic design and thus have learned the basics.
I love how structured your approach to creating a map seems to be, while at the same time you're able to go with the flow and alter it according to what comes up at the moment of creation. That's a gift, or at least an accomplishment in itself!

The outer circumstances matter a lot, imo. Working in a creative job can be very beneficial, though I imagine that it can also get very tiring having to be creative all the time. In the end, it's about balance. I see too many people getting burned out by jobs they loathe but need in order to earn money. And I live in Germany, where the system is, despite our reputation for being very productive and efficient, is actually pretty fair compared to other hyper-capitalistic systems. Still I think that the general mindset should change to something where the word "work" isn't connotated as something negativ. To achieve that, people should be able to spend more time doing what they love (and get the chance to actually find out what they love doing).
There will always be tasks that are unpleasant but need to be done. But I think we have the technology to actually automate many of those tasks.


Ok, this thread has gotten a new trajectory, sorry about that! But what do you guys think? Would a change in society make it easier to create art?

[Gamerprinter]

I've tried to respond twice, and deleted whatever I'd come up with, because it wasn't helping. Whether society could change somehow to make creating art easier, I have no idea, and personally think society has nothing to do with it. Art is created by the individual. Some individuals might be more creative if society changed perhaps, but the motivations and ineptitudes we artists may or may not have are issues that the artist must work through him(her)self. I'm not a social engineer, nor have any interest in social engineering, and cannot even conceive how society could be different in such a way to make me more creative - to me, society has nothing to do with it.

Now, your issue of not being able to complete a map - that's a problem you need to resolve, if you ever want to create your own maps. And that's "your" problem, not society's. I suggest you participate in a map challenge here at the CG. Don't worry about creating a winning entry, and don't concern yourself with the fact that the map you're creating for the challenge may not have a use for your game or fictional work - your goal here is to finish your map. A challenge is roughly 25-30 days time period from the announcement of a challenge to the vote by the community. If you can do that - create a map to meet in the challenge before the vote, you've succeeded. Then do it again, the next month - keep doing it and keep finishing maps.

I used the CG map challenges as a jumping off point to begin a 15 year career as a freelance cartographer for the game industry (and that wasn't a goal, when I started, it just happened), then becoming a publisher of map products, and a third party publisher for Pathfinder/Starfinder RPG for 3 author/designers besides myself, with over 50 products. While I cannot say what the future holds for you once you start participating and completing CG map challenges, I'm fairly certain that's what you need to do, to solve your problem. (I hope I'm not coming off too harshly, I'm just trying to help).

GP

[Tiana]

Don't let perfect be the enemy of finished. It's okay if you finish a piece and didn't get the style you were hoping for, better to have it finished and do it again some other time.

[XCali]

Don't let perfect be the enemy of finished. It's okay if you finish a piece and didn't get the style you were hoping for, better to have it finished and do it again some other time.

I agree with Tiana. I've finished maps that wasn't entirely as I hoped only to remaster them later to much better effect. But that would have never happened if I didn't at least finish the first ones. Do yourself a favor, do an experiment where you say, okay I have like 3 hours to complete an entire piece. THE ENTIRE ONE. No going past the 3 hours. What happens then, it won't be perfect at all, but it will learn you techniques to finish stuff for one, and also faster. Once you can finish stuff, no matter how it looks, you can work on stuff like 'Maybe next if I do this, it would look better, but I can still do it in good time.'

And have fun. Back yourself.

[Jaxilon]

There is an old saying, "When is an art project complete? When you take it away from the artist."

Personally, I find I have a never ending supply of creative ideas, I just don't always have a schedule leaving energy to indulge in them.

I totally agree with what others have said, join the monthly challenges because they will push you to get things done on a deadline. They are great practice. Plus, you have the community cheering you on so that helps.

Many find that the creative explosions of a project happen in the early phases and the last portion of every project tends to become rendering. Rendering just makes it look just right and takes time. It may take discipline to grind that out. Interestingly the real learning process is in the first phases.
So, if you are just trying to get better at art, it may not be worth the time it takes to render it out to completion. Once you get what you need from the piece you can move on.

If you want to sell stuff, well then obviously you have to suck it up and finish it.

You did mention playing video games and I remember one of my favorite authors answering a question about how he handled playing video games versus writing. He basically said he had to ask himself, "Do I want to be entertained or do I want to be creative?"

That works for me often if all things are even. When I'm bushed after a stressful day I have to be honest and admit it's not in me tonight, I want to be entertained. However, I find the more I ask myself the question, the more I want to be creative.

Another thing you can do is just promise yourself to spend 5, 10, 15 minutes working on a piece. Most of the time you will get sucked in and just keep going. If not, you might get to a point where you finished something just because you picked at it for days on end.

[OFdawn02]

Personally, this hasn't been too much of a problem for me. As a college student, my projects do extend out longer than I'd like but I am always looking forward to finishing them. However, before map making I used to do a lot of traditional portrait work during which I'd experience this issue.

I think a lot of it can be attributed to burnout or even art block in the sense of finding passion. As someone else mentioned, if I got frustrated with a piece I'd usually try to step away from it for up to a few days before working on it again. Or it might even be scrapped and I'd start over or move to something I'm more excited to work on.

Truth be told, I don't necessarily have the solution to this issue by I do empathize for you. Some things that helped me was only working on things I felt genuine passion for, taking breaks, or trying to find incentive to have a finished piece.

Best of luck friend!