It is very difficult to work on this project when the international rules-based order is actively disinteresting, and opening social media sometimes means I almost accidentally see someone get murdered. And people still live and die in less violent but no less heartbreaking ways. It makes it very difficult to care about what I am doing in this little room. I am afraid of all the timebombs that are waiting for me in the future, later when I no longer have an excuse to pretend it's not happening.

I am essentially a coward and I am not sure I can channel that fear into a work about people being stupidly brave.

Anyway the snowbanks are very tall, taller than me in some places. It is three days until the next playtest and I have run out of new features to program, which means I need to write. (Write and hopefully find my "physical mechanic" - what will I make people do outside of the computer? I guess I need to write an entry that makes the player need to look for something. Now I have a console, I can ask them to do that very explicitly.)

I don't want to write though because of the ego sacrifice it requires. What if it's bad?! What if it's bad?! This time I don't have any objects to write around. I should have done this first. Maybe what I need to do is sit down and draw them, replace them later with things I made.

Do I start with the trigger - what the software does - or start with the artifact - the object the entry is centered around - or start with the character - pull something from their history or storyline? Do I randomly slap all three together and hope for the best? I've been working on this for a year and I know who these people are but I still don't know what I'm doing or how to bring them out. There are two sides that are aching and inching together but they are not touching yet. And I am worried about forcing it because what if the result is ugly. I've put myself in a position where I don't have a choice. Made this bed, lie in it. What if I had done the nonsensitive project, or rectangles. It shouldn't matter the result is ugly, they are killing people in Minnesota. It doesn't need to be finished by Wednesday, only functional, people are losing their parents. Your problems are stupid and therefore easy to solve. Right?!