The Writing Life. Love it? Hate it?

Before I launch into today's topic, I'd like to say YEAH FOR CHERYL, for getting her reviews back, for taking a stand and making things so much easier for the rest of us. I also enjoyed her very thoughtful post about believing in oneself. It ties in with a saying I saw on an office door a couple of days ago:

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

I'd say that Cheryl does that very well.

So, today I read an interesting article from guardian.co.uk, where a number of working novelists discussed whether they liked doing what they do for a living. Their comments ranged from immense pleasure to downright misery, which kind of surprised me. Some authors clearly enjoy the process of turning an idea into an entire novel while others suffer through a gamut of emotions including boredom, disillusionment, frustration and downright dread. Writer, Al Kennedy had an interesting view. He compared writing to sex, in that sex is nice, but having to do it for money isn’t so nice. What particularly struck me is that one or two authors actually don’t like writing that much at all, but they’re absolutely addicted to it, as many of us are.

I have to say that I'm mostly on the "love to write" side, although I too experience disappointment and dissatisfaction from time to time. Reworking the same page or chapter because it just doesn’t sound right can be tedious and time consuming. I fear I’ll never be one of those writers who can bash out a novel once a year, or even two, but for some reason, I never lose the urge to stop trying. And like author, Julie Myerson, the simple truth is that, tedious bits or not, I’m happiest when I’m writing, and I can honestly say that I’ve never had a boring day in my life since I picked up my pencil and wrote that first sentence nearly thirty years ago.

To read the article go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/03/authors-on-writing. I’m not sure how long the link will last, but it was there today.

And for excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death please visit, www.debrapurdykong.com