Does writing get easier? How does writing get easier? How can it be so hard to make sentences and paragraphs, even when you know what they should be? Even when you know for sure that someone is going to publish them on the internet? Even when you're trying all the tricks -- write early, write late, write by hand, pretend it's just an email to your friend? Because I'm about 72 hours past deadline and still dying here with the last 300 words.
Asked by needsmoresalt
I think about this a lot. You’re talking about a different kind of writing than I do, so I don’t know how applicable my experience is. I write fiction/creative non-fiction, theoretically for no audience but me, theoretically unpaid, and under no deadline but the ones I imagine. So I don’t know. Maybe it does get easier, but I don’t know if easier is the right word. When you’re just starting out, you’re always filled with this self-loathing about how you want to be a writer but you’re not writing enough, you’re always finding excuses not to write, or the stuff you write is terrible and not good enough. You hate yourself, and it consumes you. And then every once in a while you somehow break through that, an idea seizes you and will not let you let it go. You write for hours on end, and finally accomplish something, and it feels amazing. It’s a ride, a roller coaster. But it’s only fun so many times, and you spend more of your time hating yourself than being psyched about what you created. And you get tired of wondering if and when the ride will come around again. So you get better. You get serious. You change your habits. You stop making excuses about needing the right pen or the right music. You start to find a routine. You understand that writing is just going to be the thing you do for part of the day or part of the week, a ritual like any other, like showering, like eating breakfast, like doing laundry. It’s something that you just need to do to keep your life in order, to keep your mind and body healthy. Maybe you make deals with yourself. If I do my writing than I can go do this thing afterward that I am actually psyched about. But you’re writing more often now. You’re accomplishing things, maybe, or at least you’re not not accomplishing things. You still have some of that self-loathing, but maybe not quite as much, and maybe not as deeply felt as before. But maybe you also don’t have that exhilaration, either. There are times when you’re excited, when you’re thankful for what you’re doing and eager to see where it will take you, but I don’t know. It’s a more even-keeled experience. Because the writing just stretches out in front of you, and you know it’s there. So yes in that sense it gets easier. But that thrill, that writing as if your life depended on completing this idea, that’s not there, because it’s not about the idea any more. It’s just about the writing.
