Beware of Writers Who Tell You How Hard They Work

Beware of writers who tell you how hard they work. (Beware of anybody who tries to tell you that.) Writing is indeed often dark and lonely, but no one really has to do it. Yes, writing can be complicated, exhausting, isolating, abstracting, boring, dulling, briefly exhilarating; it can be made to be grueling and demoralizing. And occasionally it can produce rewards. But it's never as hard as, say, piloting an L-1011 into O'Hare on a snowy night in January, or doing brain surgery when you have to stand up for 10 hours straight, and once you start you can't just stop. If you're a writer, you can stop anywhere, any time, and no one will care or ever know. Plus, the results might be better if you do.

RICHARD FORD

Comments

[PainfullyMinty]

As a writer, ( ._.)

[Teresa]

I love this. I hate precious-ness about writing, hope I never fall into that trap. I'm going to pop this on my blog, with full credit to you, of course. Cheers.

[Jully Sado]

Erm, so basically you're saying writing isn't brain surgery. Bit hackneyed eh?