I'm posting this, which I wrote last year, as an act of sympathy and solidarity with all the writers who have talked about how difficult and dispiriting writing can be at times. With apologies to Dorothy L Sayers.
I hate writing.
I hate sitting down to it, forcing my fingers to the keyboard,
hunting for words in an empty brain.
I hate hammering letters onto the screen, where they stare back at me,
like little black corpses.
Strange
that I thought they might live.
Good writing is true writing
That's what they tell me
Fine. This much is true: I hate writing.
I have tried writing standing up, sitting down, lying down.
I tried writing with a pencil, with a pen, with a computer.
I've used a tape recorder.
I even tried a typewriter.
And I've hated every incarnation.
I try to write what has not been written before.
I try to beat dead men at what they have done.
I try to make it up as I go along.
I try to remember to stop when I am going good
but some days I'm not going good. Do I keep going then?
I hate this.
I hate beginning, the search for inspiration.
Inspiration is a mad fool I see only from a distance, across the rooftops.
He dances for a moment then vanishes.
The blank white stalks me through early hours
it doesn't laugh, it doesn't judge,
and it never forgives.
It waits, patient as a stone god.
A Londoner once said,
you can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Alas, I appear to be unarmed.
Nothing comes to me in dreams.
Overhead conversations are little more than empty yammering.
Scenery fills my mind with partial images, like postcards scattered on the floor.
I pace, I start, I pace again and start again
then stand until sunrise in the middle of my lawn.
I hate coming back to it, revisiting a battlefield that
echoes with groans, not with glory
I hate the endless slog of chapter eight
which must be followed by chapter nine.
I'm a volunteer in the Anabasis, the long march through enemy lines
Friendless, not knowing the language, drinking from polluted wells.
There must be ten thousand easier ways to exist.
I include eating glass.
How hard can this be?
Just write, the writers say.
There is no secret to it, say the keepers of secrets.
Be persistent — this, the advice of the successful.
I hate editing.
I drag my eyes over the text, and it's like dragging a corpse over hawthorns
until we both lie bleeding under a cold moon.
No one sees the struggle, and it's just as well. It would bore them anyway.
The finished product fails to justify the effort
I hate editing.
Don't try to encourage me, I don't want it.
There's no relief ahead and no turning back
Back to the happy years of merely working for a living.
Oh yeah, I hate writing.
I hate groping in the dark, seeing only as far as my headlights, damn dim bulbs.
I hate the stumble, I hate the struggle
Why the hell can't this be easy? Like music. Like brain surgery.
I look at those who write five thousand words a day and think
I'd be happy with a hundred good ones.
I'd run away from writing if I could
I've tried to run away, I admit, but stories pursue me
like a hound that's fixed on my neck
I don't know where to turn
I hate the edit and the rewrite, the careful criticism of agents
and the useless praise of friends
Nobody gets it right, not one of them. Me included.
I hate writing
I hate this itch in my brain
the ache of the perpetually incomplete
I finish one story and another rises up to take its place
a zombie called forth by some
voodoo priest in my gut
I don't finish a story, I beat it to death.
I hate how others love to write
writing is a pleasure, they say,
a joyful thing
They can't wait to get back to it.
They're all aliens.
Writing for me is a sick compulsion
that drives me into a basement
where I slog in hip waders through sludge.
I carry the muck out one leaky bucket at a time.
The task wakes me at night,
an old dog barking at shadows.
I'm tired of the burden
of always swimming upstream.
I hate that I'm running out of time.
I shall die with stories untold. They will follow me to the grave.
They will chew away my flesh long before the worms get me
You? You love your Muse? Well you should, that
sweet sylph done up in art nouveau.
Mine is a shrill hag who rants without ceasing,
the madwoman on the third floor, always pacing.
I have a restraining order, but she won't leave me alone.
I have thrown her out. I draw the blinds and lock the doors and
She screams at me a hundred and fifty one feet from my gate.
I hate writing
I hate editing
I hate formatting and publishing and query letters and agents and
blog tours and interviews and copyedits and revisions and rewrites and marketing and
proofreading and reviews and elevator pitches
but above of all
first of all
most of all
I hate writing!
… but I love having written.
I hate writing.
I hate sitting down to it, forcing my fingers to the keyboard,
hunting for words in an empty brain.
I hate hammering letters onto the screen, where they stare back at me,
like little black corpses.
Strange
that I thought they might live.
Good writing is true writing
That's what they tell me
Fine. This much is true: I hate writing.
I have tried writing standing up, sitting down, lying down.
I tried writing with a pencil, with a pen, with a computer.
I've used a tape recorder.
I even tried a typewriter.
And I've hated every incarnation.
I try to write what has not been written before.
I try to beat dead men at what they have done.
I try to make it up as I go along.
I try to remember to stop when I am going good
but some days I'm not going good. Do I keep going then?
I hate this.
I hate beginning, the search for inspiration.
Inspiration is a mad fool I see only from a distance, across the rooftops.
He dances for a moment then vanishes.
The blank white stalks me through early hours
it doesn't laugh, it doesn't judge,
and it never forgives.
It waits, patient as a stone god.
A Londoner once said,
you can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Alas, I appear to be unarmed.
Nothing comes to me in dreams.
Overhead conversations are little more than empty yammering.
Scenery fills my mind with partial images, like postcards scattered on the floor.
I pace, I start, I pace again and start again
then stand until sunrise in the middle of my lawn.
I hate coming back to it, revisiting a battlefield that
echoes with groans, not with glory
I hate the endless slog of chapter eight
which must be followed by chapter nine.
I'm a volunteer in the Anabasis, the long march through enemy lines
Friendless, not knowing the language, drinking from polluted wells.
There must be ten thousand easier ways to exist.
I include eating glass.
How hard can this be?
Just write, the writers say.
There is no secret to it, say the keepers of secrets.
Be persistent — this, the advice of the successful.
I hate editing.
I drag my eyes over the text, and it's like dragging a corpse over hawthorns
until we both lie bleeding under a cold moon.
No one sees the struggle, and it's just as well. It would bore them anyway.
The finished product fails to justify the effort
I hate editing.
Don't try to encourage me, I don't want it.
There's no relief ahead and no turning back
Back to the happy years of merely working for a living.
Oh yeah, I hate writing.
I hate groping in the dark, seeing only as far as my headlights, damn dim bulbs.
I hate the stumble, I hate the struggle
Why the hell can't this be easy? Like music. Like brain surgery.
I look at those who write five thousand words a day and think
I'd be happy with a hundred good ones.
I'd run away from writing if I could
I've tried to run away, I admit, but stories pursue me
like a hound that's fixed on my neck
I don't know where to turn
I hate the edit and the rewrite, the careful criticism of agents
and the useless praise of friends
Nobody gets it right, not one of them. Me included.
I hate writing
I hate this itch in my brain
the ache of the perpetually incomplete
I finish one story and another rises up to take its place
a zombie called forth by some
voodoo priest in my gut
I don't finish a story, I beat it to death.
I hate how others love to write
writing is a pleasure, they say,
a joyful thing
They can't wait to get back to it.
They're all aliens.
Writing for me is a sick compulsion
that drives me into a basement
where I slog in hip waders through sludge.
I carry the muck out one leaky bucket at a time.
The task wakes me at night,
an old dog barking at shadows.
I'm tired of the burden
of always swimming upstream.
I hate that I'm running out of time.
I shall die with stories untold. They will follow me to the grave.
They will chew away my flesh long before the worms get me
You? You love your Muse? Well you should, that
sweet sylph done up in art nouveau.
Mine is a shrill hag who rants without ceasing,
the madwoman on the third floor, always pacing.
I have a restraining order, but she won't leave me alone.
I have thrown her out. I draw the blinds and lock the doors and
She screams at me a hundred and fifty one feet from my gate.
I hate writing
I hate editing
I hate formatting and publishing and query letters and agents and
blog tours and interviews and copyedits and revisions and rewrites and marketing and
proofreading and reviews and elevator pitches
but above of all
first of all
most of all
I hate writing!
… but I love having written.
HA! This is good stuff.
Scribe
Sage
Auror
