Hello everyone. The ups and downs of figuring out one’s first novel can be exhausting. Forgive my long absence. I long for the day when my rough draft is complete. I think I shall feel a huge sense of relief on that day. But there is still quite a ways to go.
The story is developing on the page, albeit more slowly than I would like. I think about how many days I have left and the work seems impossible. But the key is to stay focused on the task at hand. And to have fun doing it.
Some may argue that fun has nothing to do with it. Hard work is what gets things done. That may be the case for some types of jobs, but for a creative one, it is crucial to have fun. Inspiration and stress do not go hand in hand. As soon as I get stressed by my monumental goal, the inspiration leaves. So I have found a new necessity, to stay calm and happy and to have fun.
You may laugh at what taught me this lesson, but I am not ashamed to say it. Farm Heroes. Farm Heroes is similar to Candy Crush, both are made by the same company. You have to match three or more of the same fruit or vegetable. And in each level you must collect a specified number of certain fruits and vegetables. When I first began playing, I flew through the levels. I was having fun. When I got to the harder levels, it took several tries to beat each one. I was still having fun because the most enjoyable part to me was matching those little fruits and looking for rows of five, the ultimate prize in matching. A row of five apples, for example, will take out every apple on the grid and usually causes a bunch more automatic matches as the rest of the fruits and veggies fall into the open spaces left by the apples. But then a thought was introduced to me by someone who shall remain anonymous, that careful scrutiny wins the game. I began analyzing the location of every fruit and vegetable, figuring out what item would fall in their place if I made a match and trying to maneuver certain fruits into certain locations so I could get a win. While trying this method, the game wasn’t so much fun. I didn’t feel much like playing any more. I was afraid I would set the game aside and not care to progress any further since it was becoming a burden to me. The game used to be fun. Fun. That was the key!
So I switched to my former method of just having fun and telling myself, “I got this.” I began enjoying the game again, and beating the levels again. Much of the game depends on fate, what kind of new fruits and vegetables enter the grid after you have made a match. If the game doesn’t give you the veggies you need, you can’t make a match. So how do you get the right veggies and beat the level? The only thing that has worked for me is to have fun. When I do, most of the matches are made for me by the random fruit that falls. I feel like I am doing barely any work at all. Having fun in the game was a rather easy concept to figure out because games are made for entertainment, to give you fun. I am choosing the unthinkable and applying that concept to my work.
Some days, like today, I struggle with knowing what to write next, how to write it. I need to feel inspired. I use different things like a movie or song or read a few chapters of a book to inspire myself. But sometimes that just doesn’t work. Why would any of those things work if I’m not having fun?
This week I realized that the fun had stopped. My writing was becoming a chore. The deep feeling and inspiration weren’t there. So today I’m starting again with having fun and trusting God to bring the feeling as I approach my work with happiness.
Some practical things I do to make my writing fun again is to imagine myself as a well-known author who gets up every day and writes in her jammies. She can do whatever she wants, however she wants because she makes an ample living off of her love of writing. She pauses in the middle of the day to watch a movie or take a nap. She feels free and happy. When she wakes she is drawn to her laptop again for love of her characters and the joy of writing. And perhaps the next day, she just takes off and gives herself a break.
These thoughts make me fall in love with writing all over again and remind me to have fun.
Have fun with me today as we do our work, and let’s see what blessings fate brings our way because of it.
