Arts

Why writers feel like they do nothing

person holding blue ballpoint pen writing in notebook

As writers, we may feel like we do nothing.

No matter how much daily effort we put into it, writing doesn’t feel like a regular job.

Instead, writing feels like a blessing — whether we do it for pay, as a hobby, for therapy, or because we enjoy stitching together words as art. Or all of the above.

The process of interpreting the picture we have in our mind and converting that into words is a beautiful sensation.

Of course, the first draft is rarely any good. Writers harbor good bullshit detectors.

But the expectation is that we can tweak our words until they sound right. Revision wields the pen to our advantage and protects sentences from the erosion of complexity.

Never to be killed by comfort, the writer types on.

“What did you expect? It is work; art is work. Nobody ever said it was easy. What they said is: ‘Life is short, art is long.’”

Ursula K. Le Guin