Writing is Easy, Being a Writer is Hard

The hardest part about being a writer is making yourself sit down to write. The second hardest part is spending hour after hour, day after day, with nobody but yourself and your coffee (or in my case, chai). The third hardest part...well I could go on and on, but at the very end of the list would be the actual writing.

Yeah, I know it sounds weird. But as someone who spends most of her days writing (albeit freelance writing, and not the writing I'd like to do for novels, etc.) I can testify that the writing part - once you get going - is really the easiest part of the whole thing. It's not easy. It's never easy! But it's the easiest part.

I've read stories about writers time and again who have the worst time just sitting down and actually writing. It's not that the person dreads writing or hates doing it. It's that somehow getting from bed to computer is an insurmountable obstacle, like there is a big, snowy mountain rising up between you and your work. And you've got to climb up and over that same mountain every single day.

Now once I can actually climb over the mountain and make myself sit down and do my writing, usually I find that it flows. And I love it. And I'm lost. And by god don't interrupt me. But I can't for the life of me understand why it's so hard to just get myself there.

The other part of being a writer that's hard? Being alone. A lot. And it's not like I'm uncomfortable with myself or anything. In fact I'm probably more comfortable being alone than many people I know.

But writing is by definition an absolutely solitary pursuit. Just like I'm doing right now. I'm here with my computer and my brain and nothing else - there is no conversation, no interaction, no other human being taking part in the work. And even though my husband is at home right now, he can't be here, where I am.

They say a lot of writers are prone to depression, but then it's sort of like the chicken and the egg isn't it? Did the depression push the person into a life of writing? Or did the writing bring down a curtain of depression? Sometimes I think it's a little bit of both. Although for me the depression came first.

So no, it's not the writing part that's hard. It's being a writer that's hard. Dedicating your life to creating words and shaping scattered thoughts into cohesive works of art. To sitting in front of your computer and tapping away in silence. To living day in and day out with nobody but yourself.

Sure, writing is not inherently easy to do. Anyone who says writing is easy is a very silly soul. It's not. But compared to being a writer? Piece of cake.