Writing and Programming

I still haven’t figured out how to cope with the urge to write and to program. I know I lean more towards the writing side, but I get ideas for programs and games that I want to build. It’s frustrating, I don’t know how to mesh the two.

Like lately I’ve had more ideas for some games, one idea is for an Advanced War type game on the iPhone. It would be a turn based stratagy game where you gain levels though battle. Then you can use these levels to perminatlly enhance units/buildings.

Or for a more pokemon type game where you get badges and place them on your monsters to modify their ablilities.

Plus many others.

So whats the problem?

The problem is that I can’t seem to ever stick with anything long enough to get it done. I can write the short instant stories I post on saterdays, I’ve even written a few longer short stories (about 4,000 words) and a novel (+50,000 words) but I get bogged down when I start editiing them and then never finish. The same thing happens when I try to program on my own. I’ll start and do a few things, but before long I’m off doing something else. I just have too many things I want to do. This problem extends to more than just writing or programming, I do the same thing with video games. It’s pretty rare that I’ll finish a video game, not because it’s too hard or I’m stuck on something, but just because I can’t bring myself to keep playing. Just like I can’t keep myself focused on anything in the long term.

This is a huge problem and it really annoys me.

And it’s not a problem of planning. I have task managers and reminders and the full nine yards. My work uses the task manager I built to track and manage our entire system. I know what I should be doing, and often how to do it. I just struggle to bring myself to do it.

It’s sort of like waking up early saterday morning (this might only apply to night people). You’re awake, you know you should get up, you might even move a little. But before you know it, it’s three hours later and you’re still in bed.

I’m starting to wonder if I have ADD or something.

When I look around the internet or a book store, it seems like a lot of people have this same problem. I doubt that I’m alone here. It seems like there’s this huge problem with doing things you need you should be doing. Maybe it’s related to the whole, exercise problem. You know how you get reved up to exercise three times a week and the first week you do it. Then the seciond week you only go twice but you’re going to make it up next week. Then by the third and fourth week you’ve stopped going all together. Maybe, these are the same problem just showing themselves at diffrent forms (dieting useally takes this route as well.)

Unfortunately this post ends on a sad note because I don’t know the cause of this problem (for myself or others) and I don’t know how to fix it.