The journey starts here

Okay, I'm staring at a text box waiting for input for my very first post and, as enthusiastic as I was to start a blog, I cannot think of a single thing to say.  I'm not much and have never been much of a writer and I've never really found it easy to express what I mean in words but everyone has to start somewhere.  Perhaps it would be best to start by explaining the purpose of this blog.

There are a few reasons why I've decided to start blogging.  I've always felt I had a lot to say and contribute but I've never been able to communicate my ideas or thoughts in a way which is clear.  For this reason I hope to improve my communication skills by blogging as much as possible.  Another reason for blogging is that I often start something and rarely finish.  This goes for all area's of my life whether it be improving my personal life, work prospects or knowledge, I just hit an imaginary wall and stop.  Don't get me wrong, I don't stop thinking about improving, I just overthink to the point where I chicken out of completing anything.  An example would be what career path I should take.  I've wanted to be anything from a Muay Thai champion to the next Richard Branson, all big idea's but nothing comes of these idea's as, the more I think of a particualr idea, the more daunting it seem's to be to accomplish it so I stop.

I've identified one main problem I have and that is my perception of time.  I seem to have this inner feeling that everything I want to accomplish has to have been accomplished yesterday.  I don't know where this feeling comes from but it's stopping me from even starting.  For instance, at one point in time I wanted to be a 3D modeller and general game artist, however, as I started learning 3D I realised it would take me at minimum, a year or 2 to get to a reasonable level.  With this in mind I simply gave up because I could not wait that long.  A few years on and I'm still in the same boat complaining about how long everything I want to learn will actually take to learn.  If I spent less time thinking about how long things took to learn I'd most likely have reasonable skill in a few area's.

This brings me to the main reason why I started this blog.  I want to document my journey to becoming a game developer with little knowledge on where to start.  I'll be posting my thought's, idea's and the way I go about learning how to become a developer in the hope that it will help someone else find their way.  What this will entail is learning how to design a game from concept to coding it in a programming language as well as creating the artwork and sound.

I would like to note that this will not be a how to on how to become a developer in the shortest time possible.  I know very little about programming, my art skills are no way near good enough to create decent artwork and the only thing I know about music and sound is playing a simple piece of music on the piano (think Grade 2 or an intermediate piece with plenty of practice).  As you can imagine, I have a lot to learn and it's going to take some time.  If you understand this fact and are interested in doing it yourself, let me know as this does not have to be a lonely journey :)