Dec 10 2009
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Writing is Hard
This myth comes in many forms and has many faces, but let me put it as plainly as I can to start.
Myth: To be Good, Writing Must Be Hard. (And it can’t be fun.)
Total hogwash, of course, yet it is stunning how many new writers believe this, and how readers, when they bother to think about it, believe the myth as well. And, of course, almost everyone who teaches creative writing in a university program believes this as well, and teaches the myth.
Where does this myth come from?
Answer: A thousand places, actually. But I think the best place to look first is at writers themselves.
Fiction writers are people who sit alone in a room and make up stuff. By its very nature, one of the easiest tasks ever given to a human being. But, alas, fiction writers are people who make stuff up, and thus, making stuff up doesn’t stop when our fingers leave the keys. We use words like “struggle” and “fought” in sentences describing the creation of a story. “I had to really struggle with that story.” Or “I fought that story into existence.”
Good, active writing. Who cares if the reality was you sat fairly still, in a comfortable chair, in a warm room, at a computer, and just made stuff up.
Don’t forget that we writers, by our nature, are drama queens, to say the least. Because our task is so easy and so much fun, we have to make it seem harder to those around us, and to ourselves, otherwise we get no credit for all the “hard work” we do every day.
Writers play up this myth of “hard work” so much, we actually start believing it ourselves at times. If nothing else, fiction writers are the masters of self-delusion.
A second place to look for why this myth exists is the culture of publishing. See my last Sacred Cows post about books as events to see part of the reason. But let me do the math one more time to show just how really silly this is.
One manuscript page is about 250 words. This post is now a distance past that number of words right here. So if I write one page, 250 words, I would be done writing in about 10-15 minutes. Sometimes quicker. If I did that 10-15 minutes every day for one year, I would complete a 91,000 word novel, about a normal length paperback book.
Oh, yeah, that’s hard work, sitting silently for 15 minutes per day and moving my fingers. And the current culture would consider me a prolific writer if I did that every year for ten years. Heaven forbid I actually write 30 minutes per day and produce two books a year.
We writers have to really hide this math, and we have to really do a lot of drama to keep the world believing that working fifteen minutes a day typing is hard work. Stunning how good of a job we have done in this scam, isn’t it? As I said, we are masters of delusion, self-delusion, and just flat making stuff up.
Of course, there is always the “art” argument that comes flying in. Writers who want to hold onto the myth that writing is hard work talk a great deal about the “art” and the “craft” of what they do, especially out in public. And of course, see my rewriting posts about that part of the myth. But the truth is, when we are really creating art, we are doing it from the back of our brains, typing fast, buried in the story. Much more on the myth of “art” in later chapters.
So the myth of writing is hard has built up almost as much as the myth of agents. How did that come about?
In the beginning (I love starting a sentence like that), all writers struggled over simple sentences, meaning back in the early days of learning how to talk and write as kids, writing was hard for all of us. I went all the way through college avoiding any kind of class that forced me to do a paper or essay. I hated writing. It was just too hard. Much easier for me to do a multiple choice test.
Most people never get past those early, almost basic memories. So we grow up thinking that someone who can write a story, an article, or heavens, an entire novel, have a special power and are working really, really hard to write. Some writers I know actually still believe this.
And, of course, the pulp writers, pounding out thousands of words a day, actually were working hard on those manual typewriters. Go ahead, don’t believe me, try pounding out a single page on a manual typewriter. You’ll be covered in White Out and your arms will ache.
But sitting here in my perfect chair with perfect arm support, letting my fingers try to stay up with my old brain, I’m not doing much work. In fact, if I didn’t get out and do some exercise, some sort of movement in the real world, I would turn into a 500 pound blob with fingers. I was headed that way about three years ago. Now I’m down to 190 and still losing and exercising. That’s right, I have to get up and move away from the writing to do any real work or exercise.
Also, the early days of trying to learn how to tell stories is difficult and very frustrating. The people around you think you are wasting time, your family talk in worried whispers behind your back, your workshop hates everything you type, editors give you form rejections, and even your cat won’t go near your computer chair. Everything about learning how to write stories in the early professional days is hard. No argument.
The early days of trying to learn how to write professional level fiction is an ugly extension and reminder of learning to write as a child. Very basic fear. It’s a wonder any of us ever learn how to write novels, now that I think about it.
And of course there’s Practice. Don’t even mention that ugly word to writers. Writers, unlike any other brand of art, think they don’t need to practice. However, early days of trying to get published forces practice on all of us. No one buys our practice sessions and calls us brilliant, so we keep putting out stories and novels until someone does buy one. Practice is hard work for the most part. Anyone who played a sport or a musical instrument knows this fact. So when writers are practicing in the early years, it is hard work.
And remember, learning is uncomfortable by its very nature. When you are learning something new, it makes all us uneasy, makes us want to return to the status quo of not knowing something new. We all like stability, but when learning writing and craft of story telling, there is no stability. A writer is constantly trying something new, constantly on edge, and thus it feels hard and uncomfortable for years at a time. That’s normal, just normal. And clearly not hard work, but because the learning and trying something new feels difficult, we think it is hard work.
And this applies when we are struggling (nice word, huh?) through a story and it feels like it’s not coming together. That, we say to other writers, is working. We had to “work” at the story, the plotting into an unknown place felt uncomfortable, therefore it felt hard and if it feels hard, it therefore must have been work.
As I said, writers as great at self-delusion.
So the memory of working hard at writing still haunts all of us from our childhood. On my writing computer I have a short story to finish. But that feels like work, so I sit here at my internet computer, typing this instead. See, even I do it, still, after all the millions of words and 90 plus published books.
So, as I do with every chapter in this book, let me try to outline in simple form where writing is actually hard, and where it isn’t hard.
Where writing is hard.
1) The business of writing is hard. No argument there at all. And that business comes flowing into the writing. Thoughts about selling or not selling stop most writers at times. That makes the typing hard. Just dealing with the myths around agents can drive a writer to a nap very quickly. Cash flow, doing proofs, and everything about the business is hard.
2) Discipline is hard. Just carving out time to write is hard. Really hard, actually. Especially in the early years when the feedback loop is so negative. Simply finding time to get to the computer is hard when day job, kids, and bills get in the way. That’s hard and very hard work. The fun starts when you get to the chair with some time ahead, but getting there is hard work early on.
3) Writing more than six to eight hours a day is hard work. I know, under deadlines, I have spent that many hours and many more at a computer. When you write for eight hours a day, you know you have physically worked at something. But fifteen minutes a day to write one novel a year. That’s not work. Write ten thousand words a day for a week and you will know real hard work in the area of writing.
Those are the only places I can think of that writing is actually difficult work.
Where writing is NOT hard.
1) Sitting in a chair for an hour or so a day, making up stuff, is not hard work. It’s just not.
2) Coming up with story ideas and novel ideas is not hard work. In fact, after a while, professional writers have far, far too many ideas to ever think about writing them all, and we are constantly coming up with new ones every day. Coming up with story ideas actually becomes annoying because there are so many and it is so easy. (Fear of ideas not coming is something you learn your way past in the early days, the uncomfortable days. No worry.)
Where writing is just flat fun.
1) Sitting in a chair, making stuff up, while knowing that someone will pay you a lot of money for what you are making up. Yup, that’s fun.
2) Knowing that the typing you are doing today might still be read and earning you and your kids money fifty years from now. No other job I know of has that wonderful aspect to it. That’s fun.
3) Finishing and mailing stories is fun. Some of you might call that work, the mailing process, but actually, it’s fun. (If you think of it as hard work, if the fear is trying to stop you, you have other issues to get past.) Every time you mail something, you are mailing potential, and that’s exciting.
As an attorney friend of mine once said, when he goes to work, he gets so much per hour and then goes home. When I go to work, finish a story and mail it, every day I have the chance of making a lot of money and being read by a lot of people and making money with what I did that day for decades to come. That’s exciting and fun. If you don’t approach mailing manuscripts to editors as fun, you’ve been listening to too many agents talk.
4) I wrote that. Yup, that’s fun, great deals of fun, simply saying to someone, “Yes, I wrote that.” I can’t begin to tell you how much fun it was last weekend spending a good hour and a half signing books as fast as I could sign. I have an ego, just as anyone else, and trust me, that’s fun. Signing books for fans who love your work is not work. It’s an honor and a ton of fun.
5) The challenge of the business. Nothing is easy about becoming and staying a professional fiction writer. The business, the push to continue, the dealing with money is never easy. But the challenge is great fun. If you aren’t the type of person that goes at something that seems impossible and says, “Oh, why not, let’s try,” then you might want to find another job to chase. If you feel that security is everything in your life, then go work for Enron. That should do the trick. But if you love challenges, there is no more fun challenge than this business.
Suggestions on how to make writing more fun.
1) Take the pressure off. Simply put, this is not brain surgery. No life is in your hands other than some made-up characters. And you can kill them if you want, since you are God in your story. Take off the pressure.
2) Take stock of how you feel when you get up from a good writing session, where you finished pages. Do you feel good, excited, happy? Most of us do, sort of like just coming off a good carnival ride. Remember that feeling when you go back to write the next session or the next day.
3) Make mailing manuscripts to editors (or agents if you have that pathological need to add problems into your career) fun. Mailing and the game of trying to match the right manuscript with the right editor at the right house is fun. Frustrating at times, sure. But the more you make that part of things into just a game to keep as much writing on the market as you can, the more fun you will have and the less rejection will bother you.
4) Stop calling your writing work. Stop thinking of writing as a grind. Stop complaining to other writers all the time how bad the week was and how little you got done. In other words, CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE.
If you have an extra ten minutes, write something. If you are lucky and have a few hours, be excited about sitting down and exploring whatever world you are running around in with the story. Come at the writing with excitement, with expectations of fun, with delight.
As a mug I use for tea says on the side, “Attitude is everything.”
Over the years I have allowed myself to fall into some pretty nasty traps around the business of writing and writing itself. I let myself forget how much fun it is. I let myself believe that some writing was better than other types of writing. I let myself think that it was better to not write than write. I have managed to escape all the traps, but I was not immune to them by any means. Heck, I quit writing a half dozen times along the way.
That’s right, I figured the grass was always greener on the other side of some fence, so off I went to start a comic book store, or off I went to play professional poker, or off I went to try to play professional golf for a second time. And every time, at some point fairly quickly on those side roads, I realized I had left what I loved to do, that I had left the easiest job on the planet, and a job that paid the most. I had left a job I really enjoyed.
So now I write for a living once again, and I enjoy it even more than I ever did. I have a very, very cool story to finish tonight, one that I have been playing at too long because I’m just having too much fun with the idea. Am I going to work now?
Yeah, I suppose, since I make my living at my writing, I am going to “work” now. But I sure ain’t complaining about how hard I work. Or how tough my job is.
I sit alone, in a room, and make stuff up. That’s my job description. I have, without a doubt, the easiest and best job in the world.
It is a giant myth that my job is hard work.
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Notice below that I have added onto this series of chapters a donate button where you can donate if you feel these chapters of this upcoming book helped you in some way and you want to keep me writing them and putting them up here. And if you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this article along to others who might get some help from it. Every week or so I will be adding a new chapter on the myths and sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned. Upcoming are chapters on bestsellers, research, rejections, and so much more. This business has a lot of myths. An entire book full.
Thanks, Dean
Awesome post, Dean! Just awesome. And just what I needed. As you know, I’m one of those beginning writers (based on how much I’ve had published) and I’ve been feeling the ‘grind’ of writing and sending day after day only to increase the size of my stack of rejections.
I have gotten in a TON of practice this year (yeah, I called it the ‘P’ word) writing four novels and several short stories. The weird part about it is when you can look at a completed novel and see it as practice even though you’re sending it out. But you know your next one will be better because you learned so much writing that one.
And I can’t agree more that one of the MOST important things is to keep it fun! As Kris says, “Go play.” Very important.
Thanks Dean!
I’ve noticed that I have a great deal of personal fun, doing the printing of the manuscript, the cover letter, writing the mailing address for the market on the envelope, doing the SASE, etc. Even taking the manuscript down to the post office is fun. There is a very specific flavor of satisfaction in this ritual which I don’t seem to experience otherwise. Even submitting via e-mail doesn’t feel the same, probably because e-mail seems so temporary. You don’t get to hold the finished product in your hands. I like holding the finished product in my hands. Maybe I am just old-fashioned?
Wow Dean, thanks!
The fun part, I get. Since I am pretty early in this adventure I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t fun. Instead of writing I could be goofing off or making money at my paying gig. Oh wait, writing is pretty much a kind “goofing off” isn’t it?
What really helped me here is the knowledge that it is going to get easier (the actually writing and completing of stories). In fact in the last year, it has gotten considerably easier, but I would not yet classify it as easy.
Your point is well taken, if I make writing into “hard work” there is no way I am going to get far enough down the road to get published or make money at it.
Hmmm, perhaps I am thinking of my current paying gig (which also entails spending the day in front of the computer) as too much like “work” and “hard”. It certainly has its demands and pressures, but I started doing it because I loved it. I best get back to that attitude.
Thanks!
I think it’s both. It’s fun, but I’ve done manual labor, and that’s world’s easier. Although, I have ADD, and focusing is a struggle. My memory is worth peanuts. (Seriously, just ordering a pizza is a STRUGGLE. Check out my blog post from last week and you’ll see how pitifully difficult it is.) It drives me mad.
On the other hand, I agree with you. I’m more of a 500 words per hour person (with lots of editing mixed in), but fast writing makes things easier. I have to start at the beginning of my manuscript every morning and read, because otherwise all the details fall out of my head.
But I love every minute. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have this job, and I’m so thankful I’m daily moved to tears. It’s painstaking, detailed work, but I love the fun of that. It’s not as breezy-easy as you describe, though, not for everyone, but even when I was working another job, I could still manage 2K a day.
Natasha, yup, I agree, all of us are different, and as I pointed out, aspects of this job, like the business part, are just flat hard. But I disagree with you completely on one thing. I’ve done more than my share of manual labor and I find that hard work. Very hard, painful work. I transplanted ten trees a month ago, small trees, and hurt for days. Only when I have written fifteen thousand words in a day have I hurt like that with writing. Manual labor is hard, typing is easy. But I agree with the rest you said.
And yes, Robert, it does get easier. Of course, then the trick is to keep challenging yourself with every story, push your own limits, keep yourself and your skills on the edge, which feels uncomfortable. But not harder. Just more fun, but alas, I love challenges and get joy out of facing a challenge.
Go play is right, David, and have told many stressed out writers at workshops who were under deadlines to do just that. It always seems to break through the mental roadblocks the writer has put up.
And Brad, I’m strange as well in really enjoying dropping a manuscript into the mail. It does have a great feel of satisfaction about it. I just mailed off a ten thousand word story today for an anthology I was invited into, and I sent it e-mail. Just didn’t feel as much fun as dropping it through that mail slot. I never said I wasn’t strange.
Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to comment. Much appreciated.
Cheers, Dean
Hi Dean,
Loved that post, and totally agreed with it. For me, writing is most definitely a great deal of fun. Although I do think it should be permissable (and accurate) to call practice and learning about the craft, work.
But then, well, I have to admit that I don’t think that this post of yours is universally true. For some people, it *is* tough. The words and the ideas don’t come easy like they do for you. Of course in that case, those people aren’t normally writers. They find something else they prefer to do.
Oddly, once in a while I’ll even have a writer friend (a pro, published, successful) writer friend or two, tell me they don’t *like* to write. Hmmmmm. I find that very odd, but hey, whatever. If they like the finished product better than actually producing it, well, that’s up to them. 
I still say I love nothing more than sitting down to write.
Deborah
Deborah, yeah, I always find it puzzling when writers tell me they hate to write. But I know for a few professional writers, that comes out of a middle-class or lower-class upbringing, when your parents went to a job they hated and “worked” and looked forward to the weekend and then to vacations and retiring. That way these writers can actually call writing their job, if they hate it. Fits with how they are brought up.
For me, the thought of retiring is just damn funny. Why would I stop doing something I love simply because I got a little older? But I always believed that life was too short and why spend all my life working for a retirement that might not come, so I went like Travis McGee and retired all the time, and eventually found a job that wasn’t “work” in any real sense.
Doesn’t occur to me to take a vacation, either. Why would it. But I love to travel at times, and thus, will take writing with me and make the trip part of my “very hard work” (grin).
Cheers, Dean
Shhhh! Not so loud, Dean! Don’t want people to o-nay e-they ecret-say!
The reminder that writing should be fun had a very specific, very practical application for me today. I started a story this week and it went swimmingly at first. Then it started to bog down. I wasn’t enjoying writing it, and the words weren’t coming easily anymore, though I spent several hours working at it.
Eventually I asked myself, why isn’t this fun anymore? And I realized it’s because I wasn’t buying my own story. I couldn’t believe that one of the characters would act the way I was trying to write her. So I swapped out that character for another, and suddenly it worked. It was fun to write again and I’m nearly done with it now.
I need to make it a habit to remind myself that I should be having fun doing this. If I’m not, I’m doing something wrong.
Great post. An ATF that I intend to bookmark specifically so I can keep coming back to.
For me, getting past the myth of needing to rewrite something until I was sick of it was key to putting the fun back in. I noticed this when I tried the Story-A-Week challenge. When Sunday came, I was done.
I couldn’t change the words back and forth, GRINDING away, wasting my time while deluding myself that I was making the story better. I think my subconscious knew I was wasting my time, hated it, and that ruined the fun of writing.
That first Sunday when I could just mail the story and look forward to the next story instead of the spirit-killing drudgery of pointless rewriting was an eye-opener. It felt like a burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I actually said out loud, “Wow, this is fun.”
I’m pretty sure that third child I had was just another way to avoid writing.
Okay, Dianna, now that’s a little extreme. (grin) Thanks, Dave and Mark for the comments. Much appreciated.
I just finished a large story that was really fun two days ago. Sent it off to the editor and sat down a few hours later to do something new and my old brain said, “Hey, wait, that was so much fun, let’s go write more there, in that universe.” Only problem, it wasn’t my universe, so I couldn’t. So had to start something new of my own, which is also fun, but often brings up that “uncertain” feeling we sometimes associate with hard. My old brain liked having fun in the other place, wanted to stay there, so changing felt “hard” in an odd way. Was it, actually, hard work to change? Oh, heaven’s no. Just felt hard for a short time. Tough life.
Sorry, Steve, just gave out more secrets. (grin)
Cheers, Dean
A writing friend (professional editor/novelist) pointed out to me this series of yours, so I started reading it today. Good stuff.
I was incredibly lazy earlier this year. Didn’t write a damned thing. Bad me. Misbehaving me. In fact, I went until August before I started writing again. (On the side, I work in telecom full-time, when I’m not being laid off, that is, or going through a reorganization, or a corporate merger, or a corporate buyout, or a corporate whatever.)
Anyway, it’s taken me a little while to get back into the habit, and once I got there I challenged myself to reach the annual writing goal I’d set for myself back in January. Well, sad to say, I’m not gonna make it, but this isn’t such a bad thing. Why? Well, I’m only going to miss my goal by 20,000-25,000 words, and because I’ve taken a look at how much I’ve accomplished and how long it’s taken me to get where I’m at with this goal: 75 days of actual writing, and as of today I surpassed 100,000 words for the year.
This has made me realize a couple of things: 1) I’ve been selling myself short; I can write far more than I have been; 2) lately, I’ve been pressing myself to write more each day; when I first worked at getting back into the habit, I was aiming for just 500 words per day; I’m now doing 1500+; and 3) it’s damned fun!
Since I’ve received nothing but handwritten rejections thus far (including a couple from George Scithers; there’ve been only a few form-rejection exceptions from other editors), I figure I’ll experience something akin to bloody religious ecstasy when I finally do get published and paid. I’ve already been published, in a non-paying non-fiction market in print, and in a non-paying non-fiction online market, and both of those experiences were fun. So, I can’t wait until I get to experience my dream of dreams: getting published and paid by a fiction publisher. I wonder if it’ll make my head explode with joy. Hmm. That might be fun!
Gary
Writing is hard? I might go so far as to say tricky, but hard? No, the hard part is keeping life from getting in the way of writing, and avoiding soul sucking jobs that don’t allow you time to write.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I was going to type more, but I think I’ll just add one more thank you.
For me, writing is challenging, frustrating, joyful, and rewarding. I’m still early enough in the process that I’m figuring out HOW I write … so far I seem to be somewhere between a pantser and a plotter. I’m also early enough in the process that I’m still learning all the technical aspects. I have the most trouble figuring out the details of my plots. But once I do figure out what needs to happen, I enjoy writing it out. And those moments when you hear some snippet on the news or read something in a book and 30 different synapses in your brain explode and a ton of random stuff suddenly gels into something coherent … that just freakin’ ROCKS.
Heck, I slammed out a 3 page character study after running across the name “Ursula” in a book, and now I know who the heroine is in the next piece I do. (And then I went back to working on the current WIP.)
I write on my lunch hour most days (and it irritates me no end to have to pull my head out of my book and go back to work), and I’ve carved out some dedicated time a few evenings a week for writing. Once I figure out what I need to write in a session, I can usually knock out anywhere between 750 to 3000 words in a session, depending on how much time I’ve got.
So far me, the “figuring out what happens” is challenging, but usually the actual writing is pretty easy.
Love these posts. Thanks for taking the time to share your insights!
Thank you, Dean. Just thank you.
Over and over and over again this one hits me in the gonads. I always forget to have fun and get too wrapped up in both the opinion others have of my writing and listening too much to the voices that want to keep me from having fun.
Now if someone could just come up with a self-help program that taught you how to not feel guilty for having fun, THAT would be something.
Yeah, I’m with you on that one, Joseph. For some reason I think my “work” should be something I hate, and since I love to write, then it can’t be my work. Sigh, you find that self-help program, let me know. (grin)
Sometimes I do hate writing because I can never please everyone, and recently, I can’t even please myself! But what makes it worth it is that I love to have written. (And yes, I do love editing—even if my editing is rarely involved enough to be rewriting. Still a two-draft writer.
)
Oh, Megs, get those people out of your writing office. (grin) Only person in there should be you, so no one to please except yourself.
And when the critical voice is turned on so high you can’t please yourself, drop back to an attitude of “not caring.” What that means is just say “screw it” and have fun. Critical voice is turned on by fear of other’s opinions, by fear of failure, by caring too much and putting too much weight on the final product.
Screw it, go have fun. Kick all the voices out of your office, kick the fears of failure out of your office, and just type and enjoy telling stories. Who cares what happens when you are done with the story. Just enjoy the telling.
As I always say, if I can’t entertain myself, I won’t be entertaining anyone else.
All my opinion. Go play.