When Writing Is Hard

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

Two blogs crossed my radar today. I don't know either of the bloggers but their points were interesting and I wanted to share with you.

Janice Hardy says: "I've been working on a novel for a while (okay, two years, ugh) that's a growing pains novel. I'm stretching myself, trying new and challenging things and half the time I want to toss the manuscript out the window and work on something else.

"But I can't, because I love this story and want to write it the way it deserves to be written.

"Which means I need to grow as a writer and master some genre aspects I've never done before."

And she goes onto to discuss the painful process and how she is approaching it, complete with advice on how you can approach it as well.

Laura Lee writes: "I know I run the risk of offending indie authors when I say this but here it goes: most self-published books are not novels but drafts of novels." 

Why? Because the authors call it ready before they've gone through the hard work. Why? Because they can. I can assure you that I knew my books were better than most of the books published when nobody would buy them.  I was wrong, of course. I can see that now, just as I can see that the books that did make it through the hurdles of finding an agent and then a publisher have their flaws. But at the time I wrote them I didn't see it.

Because it's now such an easy thing to turn a manuscript into an ebook or POD book, writers no longer are forced to get better, to grow and learn and put in the hard work. The fact that there are successes in self-published books that go onto sell well and lift their authors above the crowd simply means that these authors were ready for the marketplace when most aren't.

I love Laura Lee's comment: "To jump to yet another metaphor (really where are those editors when you need them?): As stones are polished by the friction of ocean waves, novels are polished through resistance."

Writing when it's hard and rewriting when it's tedious are part of the process, part of what will ultimately make your writing worth someone else's money, time and imagination.

But ore importantly, it will make it worth YOUR time, imagination and passion. Your story deserves the best you have to give it. Your dreams, your goals, your passions deserve your best efforts.

Go for it.