Joss Whedon gives ten tips for writing screenplays. These words of wisdom can be applied to any creative endeavour - including building software. Try this one, for example:
- FINISH IT - Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating.
Aka: Real Artists Ship.
One close to my own heart:
- CUT WHAT YOU LOVE - Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.