Am I still writing a book?

The short answer is yes. Here's the long answer...

In the game The Legend of Zelda, there is a forest filled with monstrous trees whose collective canopy casts everything in shadow. On the forest floor, a mysterious mist shrouds the trunks and shrubs such that you can barely see 10 feet in front of you. Wherever you go, things look exactly the same as where you've been, as if behind that scrim of smoke-like fog, the entire forest is moving—giving you the impression that you're always hopelessly lost.

This place is aptly named "The Lost Woods," and as a kid, I remember feeling like it was an impossible puzzle. I would enter the labyrinth, take a few turns, and get sent back to the entrance. I'd enter again, try a different path, and get sent back to the entrance. I'd try again and again—attempting to brute-force my way through the puzzle—only to end up right back where I started.

Writing this book feels like I'm stuck in The Lost Woods. I enter the forest equipped with a new outline, more research, and a seemingly clearer path to exiting with a finished manuscript. Yet at some point, thousands of words later, the mist-filled maze of my own mind tells me that something is not right and sends me back out to try again.

I know that sounds incredibly masochistic. After all, a video game acts this ruthlessly to you, the player, because it is a computer program that doesn't care about your feelings. I'm doing this to myself.

The thing I find so infuriating, though, is that I honestly feel like this masochistic maze master inside me is right.

The paths I've taken so far have all felt wrong. Not the writing itself—that can all be fixed in editing. I'm talking about the fundamental structure, messaging, and story. I still haven't found the soul to give the book a life of its own.

And now it feels like I'm seven years old again, overwhelmed with frustration, tired of the trial and error, feeling defeated, and ready to give up on the game.

Thankfully, I grew up with an older brother who had a subscription to Nintendo Power, a magazine that contained hints and guides for Nintendo games. And Nintendo Power had written a guide on how to get through The Lost Woods.

The secret...listen for the music.

If the music is louder in the direction you're looking, you're on the right path. If it is quieter, you've made a wrong turn. Let the music guide you, and you'll find your way out of the forest.

After reading this, I remember crawling frantically over to turn the volume up on the TV. Then, I heard it—the small dynamic changes to the catchy repetitive loop that played throughout the level.

Suddenly, I felt like I could see through the darkness and the mist. And before I knew it, I was out of the woods in the peaceful Sacred Forest Meadow, listening to Saria's Song.

For the longest time, I've believed that simply showing up, doing the work, and writing would eventually lead me to the right path for the book. I took William Faulkner's pragmatic stance to not wait for things like inspiration.

"I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning."
—William Faulkner

But after over a year of trial and error, I'm beginning to see why some writers like Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, actually pray to the muses every morning before they start to write.

Julia Cameron, the author of a self-help book for creatives called The Artist's Way, says that writing should feel "more like eavesdropping and less like inventing." She says that her best writing came when she learned to "show up at the page and write down what I heard."

That sounds really woo-woo and metaphorical, but I'm starting to wonder what it would be like to take this advice literally.

Maybe The Artist's Way is my new Nintendo Power. Maybe there's something I need to learn to listen for instead of see.

Maybe I'm just making writing a book way harder and more melodramatic than it needs to be. We'll see.

For now, encouraging comments would be appreciated 😊.

Until next time,
Drew