Ever had your special interest evaporate on you?

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I start a project, get sucked into it, get about 70% done/ready to show off, and completely lose interest in it.

It's very very annoying and I'd like to finish something cool and get it out there. But I haven't been able to yet.

Yes. They dictate the terms, not us.

I think the term is "burn out" Its a normal thing. Set it down for a little and come back to it, most likely the interest will be back and after you take a little time from it you'll most likely see ways to improve it.

Totally........

Like someone suggested, walk away for a bit and come back.

My interest is usually renewed with vigor.......

I find my interests are so intense, that burnout is a good term for it.

Yep, being interested is tiring.

Take care......your passion shall return.

Mics

My Waluigi obsession in 2008.

Story of my life. My house is full of half-finished projects, usually crafts. It took me 3+ years to finish a latch hook picture because I would put it down for months/years at a time because the interest just fizzled out and I didn't want to work on it. Can't tell you how excited and proud I was when I finally finished it though! Stupidly I started another one because when I finished the first one (a tiger), I found one that matched (a leopard) and I was still in the "zone" of wanting to latch hook. Been about a year since I picked it up but I've been thinking about getting back into it recently.

Other currently fizzled interests:
-crocheted blanket, finished 6 out of 20 squares
-a couple of cross stitch projects
-reading the vast amount of science books I spent a ton of money on in the last few months
-finishing cleaning my living room (not a regular clean, an overhaul - got new furniture and decided to get rid of all my junk while I was already having to move stuff around. Now half of the room is piled up with stuff that needs to be put away, thrown away, or sold, but I've just lost interest at this point and don't feel like finishing it.)

Yes. My story writing. I get an idea, I plan how it all goes in my head and by the time it comes to writing it out on paper...it's gone.

I love it!

Programming has always been one of my special interests. I've got about 50, probably more, unfinished projects from when I was young. I started something because it was a challenge, but once I'd worked out how to finish it, I no longer actually felt the need to finish it just to prove myself. Annoyed my parents immensely!

Most of my other interests just come and go in phases, and I'll continue with something where I left off as if there wasn't a 5-year gap.

Edit: Typo. Must be time for bed!

I have several scale models that I started and I never finished, now most of them are buried in the back of my closet in a bin with the parts missing...

I had a special interest in The Beatles, when I was 12. Nowadays, I can't seem to get into their music.

Same for me, but it tends to fizzle at certain levels of understanding, but ive never spent any money on the project, just random sketches and calculations. Games seem to be the only things that keep reeling me back in.

Yep. I've got loads of unfinished songs I was supposed to record, all sitting there on hard drives waiting to be completed. One problem is that I tend to overcomplicate things and get absorbed in the technical aspects of it all, and then if I break off for too long, I forget the details of what I was trying to do and can't re-enter the complicated mess I made. It was slightly better when I used to record on tape......the tape would wear out if I re-recorded too many times, so I had only a limited number of tries before I had to think about calling it done. These days a song is only complete when I say it is, and that tends never to happen, as I'm a perfectionist and my results are never perfect.

But it's not just music. I've digitised over half of my photo collection but after a break I don't feel like doing the rest of them. I felt a lot of inertia starting that project, though once I got started I became nicely fascinated....then after a break I've got the inertia again. Same problem with digitising my collection of cassette recordings, I get so far and then life distracts me and I end up not wanting to get back into it.

I don't know if this is just rationalisation, but when I can't continue with a special interest, it usually feels as if it's something to do with my concern that I shouldn't spend too much time alone doing my own absolutely private thing. Involving other people brings me a host of problems I can do without, but if I've been working on my own stuff alone for even a few days in a row, I start to feel scared that I'll get stuck like that permanently, that friends will lose patience and move on, and my meagre social skills will degrade through lack of use. In some strange way, my social attitudes seem almost neurotypical.

same here. i start things with a lot of intense focus, but often that burns out. half-finished projects are pretty common in this house.

So it's pretty normal.

I was hoping that recent special interests would be useful in the wider world. It won't be if I never finish it, though.

So some of y'all manage to pick it back up after letting it sit for a while? I guess my overall strategy should be to end each work session by making sure my project is in state where it can easily be handed off... to someone else (if I never pick it back up but don't want it to disappear) or to my future self (if I do get sucked back into it).

When I change my obsessions, I don't miss them because I always had a new, bigger, better, more amazing obsession that had replaced it. I was lucky.

I was doing photography for a number of years and getting pretty serious with it, at least within the limits of the time I had available. In the last year, though, it's completely gone. I just don't care to pick up a camera any more, at all.