The problem with creative deadlines
Our output is usually somewhere between Tolkien and Stephen King
Featuring Feyisayo Aluko in The Agony & Ecstasy of the Artist series.
IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE WALKING through a forest in the transition between summer and fall. The air is heavy with dew, and all around you are varying shades of green and brown. Your footsteps are muffled by fallen leaves that eventually form a thick, spongy layer, coating the forest floor. That layer is something called leaf-mould.
In just a few years, those leaves will become fertilizer for new trees to grow out of: a collection of seemingly unrelated things that, when layered on top of each other, herald new life. When asked about how he created the world of Middle Earth, J. R. R. Tolkien points us to this term:
“One writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind. Out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps.”
Tolkien’s work grew ever so slowly out of him. When he was 36, he first began to imagine a world of hobbits and then sat on the story for almost five years, letting it grow into bedtime stories for his children before he eventually began to collate them into a book. Another five years later, The Hobbit was published to critical acclaim. A total of nine years from start to finish. But the sequel, The Lord of the Rings, took a whopping sixteen years to write.
We have to believe that all of the books he read in that time, detours, changes, rewrites, even the hesitation itself, became the leaf-mould for this world-famous story to grow. And yet, for some reason, we don’t extend the same understanding to our own artistic timelines.
IN THE REALM OF creativity and art, time has always felt like a strange concept. There are those who are able to churn out creative content at alarming rates. I look to the Stephen Kings of the world who have published upwards of 30 novels and continue to write at that pace. I know it is possible, and I admire the doggedness, discipline, and determination. At that pace, a year should bring about one or two novels at least. Maybe even three short films. But I find myself stuck in a different camp, frustrated by the reality that for me, good work takes time. Parsing through an idea requires many hours of processing, ideating, trying, rerouting, and editing.
For most of us, we live somewhere between Tolkien and King. Our projects may not need seventeen years, but they surely do not take a month or two. Based on a survey in 2021, it takes authors somewhere from six months to a year to finish a novel, but I’m convinced the numbers are slightly larger.
Toni Morrison spent a year and a half writing Beloved. Audrey Niffenegger needed four years to complete The Time Traveler’s Wife, and Gillian Flynn took three years to write Gone Girl. For all of these authors, I simply don’t question their ability or commitment to craft based on how long they spent working on a single project. But for some reason, when I am the party in question, that metric changes and an anxious urgency creeps in. Despite all the proof above, there is an inherent belief that the world can afford to wait for them, but it surely would not, could not, wait for me.
I GRADUATED FROM MY master’s program the day after my 24th birthday. It was a surprisingly hot day, an unexpected break from the sharp spring cold we had grown accustomed to. I spent my birthday at home with my family, who had traveled from Nigeria for graduation. My mum was cooking in preparation for the small party we would have the next day, and my dad kept her company with a steady stream of jokes and banter.
The next morning, my parents, siblings, and I ferried ourselves from Brooklyn to Harlem for Columbia’s 8 am ceremony. I was characteristically late, nearly missing the opening procession. There was the usual shot of adrenaline that lateness provided, the joy of seeing my classmates, and the relief that it was all finally over. We came home that afternoon to an apartment fragrant with food and full of people who were ready to celebrate. And while I was happy to see them all there, I felt like a fraud. There, in the midst of a great celebration in my honor, was a lingering sense of disappointment covered in a layer of underwhelm that I couldn’t shake.
The thesis I had submitted was a ‘polished’ first draft of a short film. The quality of it wasn’t the problem. I thought it was a pretty strong first draft and was sure that, when I eventually created the final, it would be good. What bothered me was that it simply wasn’t finished. I had spent an entire year and some change working on this project, yet all I had to show for it was a strong first draft.
In this discouragement, I decided to look to the Bible. If you think about it, the redemption story from Adam to Jesus could have been rectified within a single generation, but God chose to stretch it across millennia. There were detours, tangents, false starts, and long pauses.
In a way, the entire Bible is the leaf-mould that the story of Jesus emerges from. This is arguably the most important story ever written, the very beginning of the creative process, and it took so long to get there. I find this to be an odd comfort as an artist.
LET’S GO BACK TO Tolkien. He wrote a different and much shorter story between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings called “Leaf by Niggle.” In it, a young artist prepares for a future journey, but in the midst of his preparations, he is struck with an idea for an intricate painting of a tree. In the story, Tolkien lets the reader know this painter is skilled at his craft, saying that he “paints leaves better than a tree can.”
He goes on to dedicate his entire life to finishing this grand masterpiece, to the point that he treats every interaction with friends and neighbors as an interruption. But, in the end, he is unable to finish the painting before he is whisked away on his journey, unprepared for what lies ahead. This is, of course, an allegory for the afterlife, with the journey being death and the painting being Niggle’s life’s work.
Like Niggle, I can become obsessed with finishing my work at the expense of everything else, missing out on the opportunities that creating slowly can gift me: more time with my neighbors and friends, more time spent reading, more time with the Father. Ironically, these are the very things that the leaf-mould of my mind needs in order to grow the story I so desperately want to finish.
IT HAS NOW BEEN a month since my graduation. My documentary is still unfinished, but I am determined to heed the warning Tolkien offers in Niggle’s story. May we not become the kind of artists who are so consumed by hurry, so anxious to finish, that we forget what our creativity is for.
After all, can’t we all recall Jesus’ famous words to Martha?
Few things are needed, or indeed only one. If you choose what is right, it cannot be taken away from you.
So, I’ve begun to think that maybe the goal is not to finish my “great masterpiece,” but to ensure my art-making remains in Him, that my life is not wasted on the things I cannot take with me on the final journey. Even if that means I resign to living somewhere between Tolkien and King, with simply a first draft in my hands.
Feyisayo Aluko
Oral Historian and Writer
Feyisayo is a writer and oral historian whose work spans poetry, fiction, and film. She is also the editor-in-chief of Kokonut Head Media, an independent publisher dedicated to amplifying African storytelling. She received a BFA in Writing from Pratt Institute and holds an MA in Oral History from Columbia University.
📸 Photography by Dean Hinnant
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This is a life-giving breath of fresh air in a world that insists we move at a pace that leaves us gasping for air! I recently attended a the CS Lewis Writers Conference and one of my biggest (and best) aha moments was God's invitation to exit the high-speed interstate and take the slow, country road with Him. Thank you for these lovely words.
I love this! This essay is a very timely reminder for me to allow myself enjoy the process in a world where we are subjugated by the tyranny of the urgent. Things that matter take time. Thank you for this thought provoking piece Feyisayo.