I've come to the conlusion that writing this book is one of the most emotionally exhausting and painful endeavors I've ever taken on. Had I known it was going to be this painful, I don't know that I would have started it. But now that I've jumped into the abyss, I have no choice but to go all the way. I can't stop now. I just didn't realize that when I jumped that there would be no life line or no one at the other end to catch me. I didn't realize that this would be such a lonely endeavor. I can handle lonely. I can handle painful. But lonely and painful at the same time are quite another thing.
Most people go into writing/composing/painting with the idea that it's fun, or interesting, or gratifying. I know that I did, both as a composer and a writer. But when you think about what creating really is, it's clear that nobody writes because it's a happy experience. You have to go inside yourself to find something and bring it out so that readers who don't care WILL care.
ReplyDeleteWriting is a personal QUEST and often a painful journey to oneself. Just look at all the tortured writers it has destroyed. No one can go with you, you're alone, juggling on the tightwire. But I'll be your net.
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." - Joan Didion
"The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat." - William Faulkner
"Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled." - Dean Koontz
ILD
Ah, steph has an excellent point, one better said than I could have myself.
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