Writing takes work. I mean, ask any writer and they’ll tell you that it’s a struggle. It varies from person to person. Some find it easier than others, but regardless, it ain’t easy for any of us.
What I’m trying to say is this: We often see the story in our heads. The opening, the characters, the plot, how the narrative flows. It’s all playing out like a movie in our minds. But then we sit down at the laptop or with a pad and pen and try to transfer those images from our imaginations to reality and find that it doesn’t translate well.
Of course, I speak from personal experience. I’ve read books and essays about writing that other authors have penned and, well, the consensus is that writing is a chore. It can be difficult to express what we see in our heads to the written word. We write and rewrite, then edit, delete, rewrite some more…and eventually we give up, never completely satisfied with what we’ve produced.
I haven’t yet met the writer who is completely happy and content with their final product. It’s abandonment, pure and simple. We get to the point where we can’t fiddle with it any longer because we run the risk of editing it into garbage.
But writers aren’t any different from other artists. Painters, musicians, it doesn’t matter. No one ever sits back and says to themselves, “Yep, that’s perfect. Exactly how I envisioned it from the beginning.” Because that’s not possible. There’s no way we can replicate what we see or hear in our heads in the real world. All we can do is try to approximate, try to get as close as we can to our dreams and hope that whomever is exposed to our creative output enjoys it. Or maybe gets something out of it…an emotional response at any level.
Mostly, we do it for ourselves.
Maybe we’re challenging ourselves, or it’s some sort of ego trip, or overconfidence. Maybe we’re just gluttons for rejection and punishment by the critics. Maybe we just need to express ourselves in some fashion. Get the noise out of our heads so we don’t go insane.
Writing ain’t easy, but no art form ever is.