A Writer's Agony

Why is writing so terribly, terribly hard? I feel like I am being forced to create a mess while knowing that I’m going to have to spend just as much—if not more—time cleaning it up. The “cleaning” part doesn’t bother me, but making the mess does. I’m not a messy person; I’m neat, I’m organized, and I’m efficient. And it takes so darned much work to create this written mess, so much time and effort. Yes, cleaning it up takes a lot of work, too, but at least that time and energy have something to show for themselves, in the end.

I understand that making the mess is necessary for putting up a structure. This is the case in physical building construction and it is the case in story construction, too. The problem with story construction is that this scaffolding is made out of rubber bands and clay; it can be moved around, and it will be moved around in the revision process. The “building” I end up with may look nothing like the way I first originally structured it. So why bother? Why build anything in the first place?

Because that’s the only way to get started building, that’s why! It’s like going to the gym—getting yourself to go in the first place is the hardest part. Usually, once you’re there, it’s not so bad and you’re usually glad you went. But getting yourself out of bed and dragging yourself through the snow…that’s the hard part. Afterward, you’re ever-so-happy you went. Well, once I have a story written, I’m terribly glad I wrote it. I completely forget all the pain and agony that went into first trying to get that mess of ideas onto paper. But making that initial mess is pain and agony. I hate every minute of it. I have to nail myself to this chair to force myself to crank out the ideas swimming around in my head.

If I could download straight from my head to the computer, life would be brilliant. I am constantly writing inside my head—when I am running, when I am swimming, when I am stocking the coffee shop, when I am drifting off to sleep—but because I am not actually physically writing, it’s all worthless, inconsequential, and abstract “idea-ness” until I strap myself to my keyboard and set the darned things into print. I cannot wait for the day when technology allows us to fit our brains with some wires and start mentally dictating books. Then, I will be the next Stephen King.