Intrusive Life and the Realities of Creativity
Life has a tendency to get in the way of creativity. Not always in a bad way, but this summer truly did not give me the opportunity to work on this side hustle. In some ways, I was grateful for the break. The best part of creating and publishing Gramatic! was over. What was left was the tedium of trying to sell it. Without the automatic fun of enjoying the labor, it was easy to say I needed to focus on other responsibilities: jobs, consulting, vacations, summer camp, travel, travel, travel...when in reality, I just didn’t want to give any energy to the tedium.
But now that the summer 2024 is in the rearview, it is time to come back to this little passion project of mine. In terms of Gramatic! and Sheep Chase as a whole, the break wasn’t a total loss. I was able to step back to appraise the work I had done up to that point. I showed off my work to family and friends. I played the completed game with some of my students. I was able to reflect on the work I had done and the goals I have for the future.
The best goals are specific, time sensitive, and actionable. Therefore, I have set two main goals for the next year, ending in October of 2025. My first goal is to get Gramatic! seen by more people. Not just in a marketing/purchasing capacity, but in an availability sense. I don’t think there has ever really been a game of this kind before. It is a niche market to say the very least. And so, having Gramatic! be available will be my number one goal for the next year. To do so, I have made a checklist of how to become more available (more to follow). The second goal is to have Sheep Chase Games be presentable to the audience that would gravitate toward it the most: ESL teachers. Therefore, I will be working on a presentation focused on gamification and Sheep Chase created for ConnTESOL, the CT conference for Teachers of English as a Second Language. If I can show the benefits of my game to other teachers in a real way, I believe the game could take off. I have created a checklist for that as well.
Here is to the “new year.” Here’s hoping for a little success…