Dear Faker: Writing is Supposed To Be Hard ...
... but also, here are two essential factors you must establish and nourish in yourself in order to sustain and enjoy a creative practice; both are science-backed and simple but not easy
Hello! I am back in one piece (barely, though), from ten days in the wilderness, and I’m so happy to “see” so many new faces around here. Yay! And here’s a reminder that we’re just over a week from the start of Writing in the Dark’s next seasonal intensive for paid subscribers, “Essay in 12 Steps.” Paid subscribers need not sign up—you will automatically receive the 12 essay prompts via email each Wednesday (and the entire curriculum will be archived in order, allowing you the chance to work at your own pace, or repeat the experiment later if you like). If you aren’t a paid subscriber, you’ll need to upgrade to receive the prompts, and you can do that here for only $6/month or $60/year. You can read all about the challenge here.
And now for this week’s installment of Lit Salon, short and sweet, given that on Monday, Jon (my husband, for those who are new here) fell on a rock up at our wilderness cabin and gashed his leg open.
It was pretty bad.
Still, Jon thought it was healing okay until Thursday evening when he got undressed for bed. That’s when we saw that his leg was red, hot, and swollen from knee to ankle. At that point, had cross the lake at night in order to drive to the hospital an hour away. Cellulitis (scary stuff, on top of the pain). Got back to the landing (and crossed the lake to our cabin) at 2 AM. Stressful, yes, though we both really marveled at the dome of stars over the black water at new moon. I got behind after that, though, and am still catching up, but squeaking this one out before Monday slips past me.
Lit Salon
Dear Faker: Writing Is Supposed To Be Hard …
Dear Jeannine,
Sometimes I wonder whether I should just stop writing—or at least, stop trying to “be a writer.” The truth is, I just don’t enjoy writing very much, and that makes me question myself. Am I a fraud? Writing is just really, really hard for me. So much so that I do almost everything in my power to avoid it, put it off, distract myself from it … but no matter how long I keep away from the page, there it seems to still be, waiting for me. It’s like, I’m ready to be done with writing (I think) but writing’s not done with me. Any advice? I guess I just suspect that if I were meant to be a writer, I’d find more pleasure in the act of writing.
Signed,
Faker
Dear Faker,
Sounds to me like you are a very real writer indeed. After all, as Thomas Mann supposedly said:
A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
And Dorothy Parker said:
I hate to write, but I love having written.
I find quotes like these incredibly reassuring, which is why I collect them. And I frequently tell the writers I coach, when they are get caught in a slump and feel like they’re doing it “wrong,” that it’s okay if it feels hard. It is hard!
Still, I suspect that writing could be more pleasurable for you than it currently is. There are two things that have to click into place in order for us to experience that kind of pleasure (at least some of the time) in the actual process of writing, and those two things are simple and concrete (brain science verified, too), but not easy. They are: