I don’t know if you’d be good at it or not, and I don’t know if your circle of friends lends itself to discussions on other topics, but apart from “exciting and intense” (and the specific applicability of GameFAQs.com), most of those criteria apply to many forms of artwork. Drawing, for instance, is cheap, can be pursued at any time and with any amount of delay between putting one down and picking it up, putting things up on the Internet or showing them to friends yields prompt feedback, persistence pays off no matter how much initial talent you have, and many people find it very absorbing. Unlike playing video games, there is some chance of art netting an income, although it would probably take a while for such an enterprise to take off.
I find many “creative” pursuits, such as writing and computer programming, to be both extremely difficult and rather exhausting. I’m often good at them, but they’re so much harder than anything that’s merely a matter of mastering and executing specific algorithms. In other words, I can’t brute force my way through writing a story the way I can brute force my way through a video game, by trying over and over again until I finally get it right. If I get stuck, I’m really, really stuck, and there’s no FAQ I can go read which will tell me what my next sentence or line of code ought to be. (Which is why I mentioned GameFAQs.com as one of the things I like about video games.)
I don’t know much about drawing, though. I never had much interest in it before...
I recommend it, personally, but that’s my hobby, and won’t be universal. There are lots of drawing tutorials available for all levels of expertise and assorted styles and at varying levels of step-by-step detail, and it’s more than a little easier to assess a ballpark of objective quality in drawing than it is with writing. If you like to write, you could do your own webcomic (although I don’t know how well you’d react to keeping an update schedule, you’d be in good company if you didn’t stick to one); that’s a good way to get in regular practice and improve. If you don’t like to write and have halfway decent art, it’s not hard to find a writer willing to collaborate.
I recommend drawing from real life. I don’t think people get stuck like writer’s block. You may get stuck at a plateau of ability, but that might be OK, depending on the level.
Playing a musical instrument is quite amenable to brute-forcing techniques* (as you might guess from the multitude of musical-instrument-simulating videogames).
*You would still need instruction to get started, and for specialized tricks, however.
I think this is a good suggestion. CronoDAS, you might also like to look into web design, or just design in general. I’m learning it right now—in an amateurish, inconsistent way - because it’ll help my website programming work. I’m really enjoying it even though my current skill level could be regarded as “terrible”. It involves learning tools like Photoshop (or GIMP if you like Linux), CSS and the principles of design. It helps me make things that appeal to my aesthetic sense and give me a sense of accomplishment, and I get satisfaction from improving a skill. As a self-directed exploration of this skill, it should be low-stress and there’s not really a way to fail.
It sounds like you have programming talent but don’t like getting stuck (I sympathize), but it’s hard to get actually stuck when your tools just include HTML, CSS and Photoshop.
I don’t know if you’d be good at it or not, and I don’t know if your circle of friends lends itself to discussions on other topics, but apart from “exciting and intense” (and the specific applicability of GameFAQs.com), most of those criteria apply to many forms of artwork. Drawing, for instance, is cheap, can be pursued at any time and with any amount of delay between putting one down and picking it up, putting things up on the Internet or showing them to friends yields prompt feedback, persistence pays off no matter how much initial talent you have, and many people find it very absorbing. Unlike playing video games, there is some chance of art netting an income, although it would probably take a while for such an enterprise to take off.
I find many “creative” pursuits, such as writing and computer programming, to be both extremely difficult and rather exhausting. I’m often good at them, but they’re so much harder than anything that’s merely a matter of mastering and executing specific algorithms. In other words, I can’t brute force my way through writing a story the way I can brute force my way through a video game, by trying over and over again until I finally get it right. If I get stuck, I’m really, really stuck, and there’s no FAQ I can go read which will tell me what my next sentence or line of code ought to be. (Which is why I mentioned GameFAQs.com as one of the things I like about video games.)
I don’t know much about drawing, though. I never had much interest in it before...
I recommend it, personally, but that’s my hobby, and won’t be universal. There are lots of drawing tutorials available for all levels of expertise and assorted styles and at varying levels of step-by-step detail, and it’s more than a little easier to assess a ballpark of objective quality in drawing than it is with writing. If you like to write, you could do your own webcomic (although I don’t know how well you’d react to keeping an update schedule, you’d be in good company if you didn’t stick to one); that’s a good way to get in regular practice and improve. If you don’t like to write and have halfway decent art, it’s not hard to find a writer willing to collaborate.
I recommend drawing from real life. I don’t think people get stuck like writer’s block. You may get stuck at a plateau of ability, but that might be OK, depending on the level.
Playing a musical instrument is quite amenable to brute-forcing techniques* (as you might guess from the multitude of musical-instrument-simulating videogames).
*You would still need instruction to get started, and for specialized tricks, however.
Indeed it is! I can play the piano at the “talented amateur” level. I enjoy it, and like performing, but it’s damn hard to make money doing it.
Have you tried programming in a language with an interactive interpreter, extensive documentation and tutorials, and open source code?
I think this is a good suggestion. CronoDAS, you might also like to look into web design, or just design in general. I’m learning it right now—in an amateurish, inconsistent way - because it’ll help my website programming work. I’m really enjoying it even though my current skill level could be regarded as “terrible”. It involves learning tools like Photoshop (or GIMP if you like Linux), CSS and the principles of design. It helps me make things that appeal to my aesthetic sense and give me a sense of accomplishment, and I get satisfaction from improving a skill. As a self-directed exploration of this skill, it should be low-stress and there’s not really a way to fail.
It sounds like you have programming talent but don’t like getting stuck (I sympathize), but it’s hard to get actually stuck when your tools just include HTML, CSS and Photoshop.