Writing isn’t easy!
Have I said before that writing isn’t easy? I bet I have. It sounds really simple doesn’t it? How many times have you had a really neat idea pop into your head and by the time you have daydreamed on the train, in the shower, in the car (I don’t recommend that if you are driving!), you have come up with whole scenes for the best book since Harry Potter? You know how it is - you can imagine all the characters; you can even recite huge passages of dialogue - and if you are really practised, you have even shaped whole paragraphs and clever sentences in your head.
So all you have to do is sit down at the keyboard (surely even Ms. Rowling uses one of those now?) and bang it all out. Done in a weekend right? Easy-peasy. How hard can it be?
Try it! Unless you were born to be a writer I bet you get about 1000 words before you find out just how difficult it is. Somehow what’s in your head doesn’t just flow down your arm, through the keyboard and onto the screen. Somehow sentences don’t work. It doesn’t come out right. Mummy! Why isn’t it coming out the way I imagine it? It’s just not fair!
Actually writing is almost a painful process. You have to fight, coax, bribe, tease and positively drag those ideas from your head, kicking and screaming. You have to perservere, stop and think, reshape, wonder why in stark print in front of your eyes, those poetic phrases in our mind just look silly and stunted. It’s tough. You find yourself actually trying to think of things to do rather than write. Need to feed the cat. I’ll just do my bills. I’ll just surf about a bit. Oh now it’s time for a coffee. Hmm.. that shelf looks dusty. Hey I think it is time I cleaned the toilet. Maybe I’ll write tomorrow.
Then you catch yourself: Whoa, what am I doing? I’m supposed to be a writer. I LIKE writing! It’s fun. I’ll definitely write tonight. Yep. For sure. After dinner. After that Discovery documentary. After I’ve cleaned the toilet again. Damn! Time for bed now. I’ll definitely write tomorrow…. Sound silly? That’s because it is silly, but a lot of great and famous authors have been through the process and some still do. Why?
Well you know what? If you discipline yourself and write a bit every day (after all, just how clean DOES your toilet need to be?), then you suddenly find it IS fun, it becomes easier, you write more and it looks better on the screen. Wow, look at that! Just don’t get complacent because at any moment the writer’s procrastination can hit you. But it’s great to see your work take shape, oh so slowly. This first book is the worst, they tell me. It gets easier and better every time. Well that makes sense - apprenticeship and all that. But why does it have to be so mentally anguishing? That I think, is the mystery and lure of writing. Anyone can write. It’s perhaps true that everyone has a novel in them. But the secret is that not everyone can finish a novel, a good novel. And that is what turns a writer into an author.
Now… maybe I should actually write some more to my novel, ay?
