Sunday, February 3, 2019

Super Bowl Sunday: Pondering the Question, Is Writing Hard?

My husband and son, who couldn't really care less about football any other day of the year, are in the living room flipping between the Big Game and Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl.  I'm pretty sure they're more interested in the Super Bowl commercials than they are in the game itself.  As for me, I'm at the computer, typing out this blog, and trying to get some thoughts together to write with.

Someone on Twitter just posted a poll... Is writing hard?  I selected yes, but not because I actually find writing hard.  Writing, once I get started doing it, comes as naturally to me as breathing does.  It's the "getting started doing it" part that is hard.  Today, for example, my writing needed to wait for a visit to the in-laws' to be finished, a study guide for an upcoming science test to be written, and Twitter to be perused (because, for some reason I'm still not entirely certain of, I'm trying to build my Platform.  Please don't ask me what that means.  I'm honestly not sure.)  

And now I'm writing.  But wait, Chris, aren't you updating your blog right now?  Well, yes, but writing this blog counts as writing time for me, because a) it IS writing, and b) if I wasn't updating my blog, I wouldn't be getting any writing done at all, because my muse has taken time off to watch the Super Bowl.

THAT is the hard part about writing.  When the ideas come, I can grab them and jot them down in my handy-dandy notebook, but when I settle in for some actual writing time, the words may or may not be there.  Some writers say to just glue your butt to the chair and stare at the screen or page until you can write something.  Others advocate writing exercises, prompts and the like.  Still others say, snarkily, that if you can't commit to writing when you make time for it, you're not a writer.  And there's some truth to what all of these writers say or suggest.  

But for me, if I'm not in the proper zone, with words moving through me like waves through water, just sitting and trying to muscle my way through it is about as helpful as trying to give my son Algebra advice.  (Note: I failed Algebra in high school.)  I'm bound to write something, but it's almost certainly going to be something that I hate.  Something I'll never use.  So... yes, writing is hard, in a way.  Writing itself is easy.  GETTING to the writing... now, that's hard.

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