Shrines: Neverending Work?

[nyxmidnight]

We should have some sort of revamp event :D

[Crystal]

I posted this on Discord but I'm going to share it here too.

This is why I want to take a pause on making new sites and fix up some of my existing ones. I want to completely redo my Ocarina of Time shrine and I have some content I want to add/finish to others. It's tough to do when I'm so focused on making new shrines.

Lately also it feels like I have zero motivation to work on any new shrines plus I feel like I have too many. I think this would be a good time to step back and give my older shrines some of the attention they deserve... after I finish Chrom lol.

[Destinie]

I feel this so bad. My standards are so high and it sometimes keeps me from making new shrines because my old ones need so much work. It seems like every few years I go back into a shrine and rework it and update it. But sometimes these high standards makes me want to close down certain sites and I fight REALLY hard to not do that.

I really wanted to have a collective that was a handful of maybe 4-5 PERFECT shrines but I don't think that's even possible!! So I've been trying to think of them as things that I've crafted and then displayed to be viewed in their entirety BUT that doesn't mean I can't go back into them at some point, right?

IT IS A NEVER ENDING STORY

[insert picture of Falcor]

[Todd]

You know, I don't know if that's a thing I love or hate about shrines. That I can always improve on what I've made before, or that there's always something that could be better about my sites. But I guess that's true of every creative endeavor, yeah?

This is true! I think with art though, we see them as completed pieces from an earlier time, so it's a little different. Authors who publish novels can't go back and rewrite a published novel later on. I think people expect us to keep our sites updated, though, unless we promote them as completed pieces like Destinie does.

We should have some sort of revamp event :D

Haha, we have some stuff coming!

That's actually a good point, Todd! I don't actually see this as a bad thing, because it means you can always find something to work on and your shrine can always improve more and more. Rewriting or editing already existing shrines can still be a fun way to keep up with the hobby without doing anything too daunting (which is something to consider as we grow older and eventually jobs and families will keep on eating up most of our free time - at least that's my biggest fear, haha) - although rewriting an entire shrine can be as daunting as starting one completely from scratch.

This did happen to me recently though while looking at my Vulpix shrine which I finished in a hurry for Creature Feature - now I want to rewrite that shrine with new things and making some pages more interesting. I guess you could "archive" some of your sites in the future to avoid just having to rewrite content every year, but probably knowing me I'll still not be happy with an archived site, haha.

I feel this so much! It is so hard for me to archive any of my sites, which is why I haven't yet. 17+ shrines to continually work on is a bit much though, so I'm rethinking things. I might archive a few.

[Aku]

I totally understand this sentiment, and I've gone as far as taking shrines off my network list because of it! Honestly though, the ones I have removed are ones that I felt were "incomplete" and things I wouldn't return to or didn't have the passion for, rather than the quality being of lesser value than what is represented on my network.

I definitely wouldn't look at this negatively though! If you find yourself disappointed in your older work and you see flaws, it means you've grown as a designer, a writer, a website creator, etc, and that's a good thing! For me, there are things I could see myself going back to, and there are other things I see as "completed" and as a work of it's time. I don't particularly mind having those shrines to look back on and see how I've grown as a creator, and I think it's kind of interesting to know that it exists as a piece of what I thought about that subject at that point and time in my life.

Everyone's different though! I think if revamping and revisiting the shrines to pull it up to par with the rest of your network is your thing--it's definitely worth improving upon it! There are certainly some shrines I'd at least like to give a good redesign so they'd be up to date with more modern practices.