Before it is Anything Else, Writing is Work

I started writing with the absolute certainty that I would earn both fame and fortune.

Such fantastic visions of success were only possible because of my blithering ignorance, of course

For three years now, life and the publishing industry have slowly been rectifying my initial mindset with a thousand body-checks to the ego.  This is not a bad thing.  Much as a blacksmith forges a sword with a flurry of hammer-strokes, I too been molded and tempered by the drubbings I’ve received.  My goals are now grounded in reality, yet they retain an edge keen enough to sharpen my focus upon them.

Writing is a fascinating pursuit because it is simultaneously an infinitely malleable art form while also being contained within the most unforgiving barrier to entry ever conceived in the most twisted corner of the Pits of Tartarus.

Still, every day that is ours to write with, we find ourselves writing.  Maybe it’s the joy of discovery which keeps you in the seat, the need to be Indiana Jones to your manuscripts ancient ruins.  Then there are those who cannot help but write, having spent their whole lives collecting and telling stories. The list goes on; each author’s journey is as unique as the wayfarer.

Yet there lurks within our sea of dreams an unstoppable leviathan, ever-ready to devour both new and old authors with equal disdain.

This threat is so omnipresent that we tell ourselves any lie we can scrape together to plaster over the reality of spending every day with our own personal doomwhale.

Writing. Is. Work.

Lots and lots and lots of work.  You’ll spend so much time on any particular project that long before it’s over, you’ll regret the following:

1. That you ever had the idea in the first place.
2. That you were ever born.
3. That there aren’t enough words in the English language to encapsulate just how much you want to be done with the wretched thing already.

It doesn’t matter what your hopes and dreams are, for no matter how misguided or wholesome or adventurous they may be, you cannot avoid paying the piper his due.

Writing is a lot like life: It exists as it is, not how we wish it to be.

There is no Konami code for your manuscript that will warp you to the final level.  There are no pacts to be made with forgotten eldritch beings whose wriggling appendages will magically complete the project that went sideways on you after the first chapter.

There’s just you, sitting in a chair, trying to shield yourself from the looming pain and aggravation with all the internet kittens you can muster.

The only thing you’ve got to help you navigate from “The End” to the moment when you’re actually finished is everything you’ve learned from your time slaving away at the keys.  Occasionally you’ll get some sage advice from a fellow author, but (spoilers) they tend to be extremely busy fighting their own monsters.  Don’t expect that to happen with regularity.

Writing is a lot of different things to a lot of different authors.  It can be refuge, proving grounds, or simply a passion which allows them to color on the edges of their existence.

What is always true, and what you must always plan around no matter how many years you’ve sat at the keys, is this:

There is a bloodprice to be paid and the only accepted currency is the sweat of your brow.

Workfully,

The Unsheathed Quill