You all know the feeling. You get out of bed and immediately feel great. One or two coffees later and you feel even better. The sun is shining, the muse is kicking in like never before and your brain is in major creative mode.
Today is the day you feel as if you could write the next ‘To kill a Mockingbird’, or maybe even the next Robert Langdon. Er, maybe that’s going a wee bit too far, but you get my drift …
Wouldn’t it be great if all days were like that? But you know as well as I do that they aren’t. Most days it feels like every sentence has to be dredged out of some steam-punkish type spaghetti-maker. Like every word you eventually judge a perfect fit (after at least an hour of manic sentence juggling) ends up turning the text into garbled, unintelligible rubbish.
So what do you do? Give up? Start looking for clerical jobs on the internet? Wish you hadn’t started the sequel to (insert WIP title here) which, four and a half thousand words ago, still seemed like a viable proposition?
No!
Listen to your peers!
John Banville:
‘Civilisation’s greatest single invention is the sentence. In it, we can say anything. That saying, however, is difficult and peculiarly painful.’
George Moore:
‘No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader’
Vladimir Nabokov:
‘I have written – often several times – every word I have ever published’
Sidney Smith:
‘A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage’
Hmmm. Authors are to be brave then, and resilient. Accept that the job is a hard graft, enjoy the days of inspiration, persist through the days of darkness.
So what’s your remedy for when the going gets tough? Drop me a line and let me know! I could use a bit of moral support … 🙂
Happy weekend!
Hi Scott, I love the Sidney Smith quote. It’s worth putting up on a sticky note over the monitor 🙂 I find my biggest obstacle to be working in a job where I’m constantly reacting to people’s needs, and having less thinking time than in previous jobs. Resilience is necessary – I just make myself write anything that comes to mind. Sometimes it’s usable, sometimes it’s not, but I still feel accomplished.
Hi Jill – Sticky notes are great! By the way, Graham Greene once commented that ‘writing 200 words a day is enough for anyone’ — so take heart!
Can I also recommend Celia Brayfield’s book, ‘Bestseller – Secrets of successful writing’? It’s the most well-thumbed book in my bookshelf! Very inspiring – I think it’s still available on Amazon.
Keep in touch!
S.