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| Photo credit: tonystl on Flickr |
This time, it’s about writing.
As a writer, it goes without saying that I (usually) enjoy
writing. Turning a wisp of an idea into
a fully plotted, tangible novel is an incredible experience and I love so many
things about it—from discovering new characters and worlds to surprising
yourself with an unexpected plot twist, to watching a skeletal first draft
develop into a complex, nuanced novel—writing can be truly amazing. This is the
good.
But writing can also be an excruciatingly difficult
experience. There are days—weeks, even—where it’d be easier and more enjoyable
to sit through 48 hours of Teletubbies re-runs in the desert while attempting
to find a particular grain of sand (don’t ask why there’s a television in this
desert. There just is.) than to write a single paragraph. Or sentence. Or word.
This is the bad.
There are moments when you look at the WIPs you’ve been
slaving over for the last x years and
wonder if you’ve wasted your time, if you’ll ever get published, if it’s worth
spending another minute trying to do this writing thing. There are times when
you’ve rewritten a manuscript three times and you think you’re finally
finished, only to receive an edit letter or critique that requires you to
rewrite it again. Then there’s rejection. Form “thanks but no thanks” letters.
Manuscripts piling up in your drawers. Amazon e-books that don’t sell.
This is the tortuous.
No, writing isn’t all mounds of sugar, rainbows and bunnies,
but to me, the good far outweighs the bad. I’d happily slog through a couple
more decades of doubts, rejections and shelved manuscripts just to experience
the joy of discovering a new story and meeting new characters and knowing those
words marking the page are mine.
There’s something special about that. Something I won’t ever
give up.
