Creative Writing Wizard

Do you feel pressure to finish writing your story? Perhaps it’s a self-imposed deadline, or you feel like you’re not making as much progress as you’d like. 

I’ll admit, this is still an area of growth for me. But there are a few things I have learned recently that have helped me in my approach as I continue making progress towards a published novel. 

Allow me to share with you the challenge I’ve faced, how I’ve shifted my mindset, and how an online game, Final Fantasy 14, led me to ponder my perspective.

Climbing a Mountain

I am a task-oriented person. I like to set goals and push myself to complete them. I pride myself on being able to take on challenges and often finish them faster than the norm or what I had set for myself.

But when it comes to writing a book, I’ve struggled with how long it has taken.

The big dopamine hits for me come from checking boxes and completing milestones. Like climbing a metaphorical mountain, I enjoy the struggle and challenge but it’s the peak that drives me forward. 

I have had this mentality for most of my life, but recently I came across a different way of thinking and it’s made me evaluate how I approach monumental tasks like this.

The ‘Long Road’ Perspective

For those of you who don’t know, Final Fantasy 14 is an online role-playing game. I don’t need to go into details describing it, but something that really sets it apart is its deep lore and story. It is also VERY long. For a point of comparison, most modern games today range between 10 to 20 hours for a standard story, with the ‘longer’ ones getting into the 50 to 100 hours. 

Final Fantasy however is a behemoth, with the main story (if that’s all you did with laser focus) comes in at around 350 to 500 hours! The game has an insane amount of side content in addition to the main campaign. People can easily spend thousands of hours in this virtual world.

Why am I talking about FF14? Because, like most things in my life thus far, I set a goal: ‘beat the game, get to max level, finish the main story,’ and I set myself to the task. I quickly learned how long of a game it would be.

While I did enjoy the story, I eventually got frustrated with it. Every goofy side moment was a distraction away from my goal. Every time I had to run across a town or unlock teleporting between cities it felt like a chore. I enjoyed parts of the game but, with what little spare time I had, I felt like I was wasting time.

Skip ahead a year or so of on and off playing and I came across something the director of the game said. He said it’s okay to take a break every once in a while. I then realized the game was not designed to be beaten in a month. 

When I read that, I started to re-evaluate my perspective. I had been looking at the 400 or so hours I had ‘left before I got to my goal’ and dreading anything that slowed me down. But this thought made me wonder, do I have a skewed perspective?

So the next time I played, I tried to lean back a bit. I still mainly focused on the main story, but I’d occasionally do a little optional quest or talk to a side character to hear what they had to say, even if it wasn’t required. The walks between cities to unlock quick travel teleportation slowly shifted from being a chore to becoming a peaceful walk through a beautifully designed virtual world. 

The ‘Scenic Route”

In a similar way, I feel like I’ve had my old approach to FF14 when comes to writing my book. I’ve been so focused on finishing the book that anything that slowed me down or any slight diversion felt like a huge setback. 

I started to ponder my self-imposed deadlines and question this sense of needing to rush to the end. Over time, I felt myself shifting from the mindset of “I have to get this done” to “I’m done when I’m done”. (Or in the great words of Gandalf, “a wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”).

It doesn’t seem like a huge shift, but just a slight tweak to my perspective and suddenly I find myself on a journey instead of in a race. No longer rushing to the end, but walking along the path in the direction of my goal.

There’s an old saying, stop and smell the roses, and I feel like that applies here. I quite often try to rush to the end to crest that peak. Viewing this as more of a nature walk up a mountain has led me to enjoy the ‘scenery’ along the way. 

I’m still moving towards my goal of a finished book, but I don’t feel as much pressure as I did. And as plans inevitably shift and change, I’m not as bothered by it. I am confident I will eventually finish, and that hope helps me continue moving forward. 

How about you? Do you feel like you’re trying to rush to the end, or are you enjoying the journey along the way? 

Wherever you are at in your writing journey, I hope this encourages you. 

Writing a book is not a race, it’s a journey.
And you are doing fine.