I'm still working on my vaguely interactive fiction for Christmas. I've been working on the artwork. There's lots of illustrations. And I've been converting them to the zx text versions. It's taken so long that I've been able to get a bit of distance from all the writing which I went through today as I was inserting the images. And I'm pretty pleased with it.
It makes sense that because it's 3 times bigger that it will take three times as long to make. But working on a Christmas thing now is like a metaphor for all creative projects. You've got to get it done before the energy that made you start dissipates. And before you start having energy for whats next. Also the longer its been since you conceived a project the more weight of expectation it has to carry.
My hope for the zx spectrum interactive fiction things I've done was that I would be able to put them out at regular intervals. And that the Christmas ones would be just one of many. But it's not worked out like that. I also haven't been able to put the time in to convert my code to other 8 bit systems like I wanted to. Maybe if I made interactive fiction that was text only it could happen more in the time frame I need to. But I think things just need to be a certain size. And making them takes time. The zx projects have been a step forward in terms of working within limitations and trying to work on a human scale. You can probably tell my mind is on what I should be working on next and on working in a different way. But there's still this to finish. There's plenty of time before next Christmas. But I want to get it over and done.
