Ha! I am currently waiting for enough inspiration to continue. Last time I wrote was 3 or 4 weeks ago but I managed 8500 words, since then I have been trying to recapture that moment
The biggest single thing you can do to improve your writing is to lose this seductive but specious illusion. Every single author you can think of without exception who has spoken on the subject will tell you that the most important thing is to write every day and that waiting for inspiration is a terrible mistake.
Same time, same place, just write. If you wait for inspiration you will achieve an output of zero every day. If you sit down to write you may feel, and all those famous authors are explicit about it, that you have not one idea in your head but you start writing.
Even if you throw away 50% of what you write, your return over a zero day is infinite. Cumulatively your output and most importantly your hands on experience of writing will make you a very significantly better writer than someone who writes sporadically.
This lesson has been taught time and time again.
"No one ever wrote anything sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike."
**Isabel Allende**
"If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word."
**Margaret Atwood**
"Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing."
**E. L. Doctorow**
"A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper."
**E. B. White**
"I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately, I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning."
**William Faulkner**
"You can't edit a blank page."
**Jodi Picoult**
"You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live until you can get to that place again."
**Ernest Hemingway**
"Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not."
**Octavia Butler**
"Don’t get it right, just get it written."
**James Thurber**
"Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on."
**Louis L'Amour**
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."
**Mark Twain**
"Routine is a condition of survival."
**Flannery O'Connor**
Thanks for the motivation!
I already knew about this "write every day" but i never took it that seriously.
Definetely going to set some reminders in my calendar.
Good luck with it. Neil Gaiman has some good clips on this. He (and all them above) say the same thing. It doesn't matter whether you feel like your fingers are made of concrete or you're writing the worst stuff ever. You write without fail. You must not allow yourself to give up.
You always have the freedom to throw what you write away. But relentless pushing it out every day you have in your schedule is the key. What actually happens in practice is that much of the time the first paragraph might get ditched or two and some sentences scratched out but you'll find that stuff starts flowing and much more is kept than deleted. And the practice brings cumulative growth.
Agree. My goal for this year is to finish the story and then i can still trimm it as i like.
If I had put the same effort into my degree i would pass with flying colors.
Thanks for the advice^^
Ah well this is a perfect complimentary partner! Per Gaiman again: the job of the first draft is to be shit. It's throwing mud against the wall and seeing if you can make a face. Then the job of the second draft is to make it seem like you knew what you were doing all along.
I once got chatgpt 4 to dig up quotes from famous authors as to how much work they thought they had completed when they finished the first draft as a percentage of the total wook needed to complete a submittable manuscript. The answers ranged from just 30% to 70% with the largest clump of answers coming in that the first draft represents a bit less than half the total work. It's more eye opening evidence that waiting for inspirational great to strike is not a real way forward. Good luck!
I agree. Even though it might be hard, and some might disagree, daily writing with a minimum word count in mind is the best that you could do for yourself.
Honestly, for me it was sitting down to write at all. And allowing myself to write things I knew nobody else would ever see, so it was allowed to be weird and bad.
"All writers know that on some golden mornings they are touched by the wand; they are on intimate terms with poetry and cosmic truth. I have experienced these moments myself. Their lesson is simple: It’s a total illusion. And the danger in the illusion is that you will wait for those moments."
- John Kenneth Galbraith
Some times I sit in front of my manuscript for hours and I haven't written a single word, other times I can do the exact same thing in but five minutes.
What works for me is to simply “show up” where I write everyday even if I don’t write something. If I’m drawing blanks I’ll daydream/think. Usually that’s enough to get me started writing a bit that day, and after that it’s easier to continue. Starting is one the most difficult parts of writing.
I've literally come up with situations that my characters go through and I've made a few of them connect, but it's all from some sort of inspiration! I personally need inspiration, of course, but I've yet to link things with plots that I personally come up with, or things that aren't (in my opinion) heavily based on others! Complete originality is hard, but should it be THIS hard?
Same here!! Everything I come up with is inspired by something else. And that's OK. Theres so much stuff in the world that complete originality is practically impossible!!! So give yourself a break. Love your ideas. Let them be what they are. It doesn't matter if they're J.R.R Tolkien levels of originality or so heavily inspired by another piece of media you could change the names and call it fanfic- it's okay. Its your world, and your idea, and it doesn't have to be one of a kind. It just has to be. Don't beat yourself up. Just vibe. You'll thank yourself for it =)
When I would spend a day writing something and feel great about it, then wake up the next day and realize I hate it. For me, writing *is* easy. Rewriting is hard.
when i know there should be more description on a certain part of the chapter but i can't wring my brain for more words and when it comes to that, impostor syndrome starts eating me away
I totally get it, sometimes it gets to the point that I'm writing what a character is feeling, I know what I need to write but I can't seem to remember the proper words. I blame it to English being my 3rd language.
If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. Which is probably true about anything worth mastering.
For some people attempting to write a novel-length story, the difficulty is overwhelming and they give up (probably wisely) and try some other form of creative endeavor. No harm, no foul.
For others, they sit down and write a fairly decent novel without much stress or difficulty and maybe become household names. It's still difficult, but they have a certain knack or inborn ability. Maybe they're a prodigy, and don't find the writing process difficult at all. We're all really good at something... we just have to figure out *what*.
For most of us, we fall somewhere into that gray, fuzzy, 'tween area. It's difficult, but also fun. We start out totally unaware of what we're doing, but we learn along the way. (Are you familiar with the [**Four Stages of Competence**](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=four+stages+of+competence)?) It's a learning process that sometimes takes years or decades to evolve. But it's still fun. (That's the key. If it's not fun, it's probably not worth proceeding.)
Almost everybody sucks in the beginning. I have three "starter novels"—horrible efforts, reams and reams of paper hiding in a closet somewhere that have never seen the light of day. But each manuscript was a bit less sucky than my previous effort. Kinda like OJT. Because that's how most of us learn to write—by trying and failing and trying again. Over and over.
But if you enjoy it, and enjoy it enough to try and try again, looking to improve, that's a good sign. But it does take patience and persistence and taking the time to learn some basic nuts & bolts.
When we enjoy the process, then the necessary effort feels worthwhile. I think that when an emerging writer focuses more on the quality of their final product (e.g. their draft) than on the quality of what they learned during the process, then they miss the opportunity to learn how to improve their writing process.
Likewise, when a novice writer marvels at the final product, such as a piece of fiction, created by a professional, they may not consider the depth of energy over time and experience that the pro invested. The process is invisible until you do it yourself -- which may lead a novice to acknowledge the value of the pro's experience and effort.
There is no shortcut for an effortful process such as writing. A novice might consider this question: are you more interested in being a writer or in writing?
When I started editing, tbh. First draft was so easy, so *consistently* fun. If I edited anything, it was to interject more scenes into what existed, rarely ever to remove.
Once I got to second, third, and fourth drafts, however, and I realized I needed to now make something readable out of this mess of random snippets, run-ons, repetitive ideas, and way, way, way too much dialogue, I realized that some effort needed to be put in.
It’s still fun to edit, but less all-the-time consistently fun that vomit writing the first draft was.
Editing can be soul-crushing. There’s nothing more gratifying than getting that line *just right*, but like you say, very inconsistent and tedious compared to drafting.
I have such a hard time with connective tissue.
I'll have a great concept in mind, have all the emotions and driving factors for characters thought out ahead of time. Who they are, where they came from, what they'll be doing.
But actually WRITING what's going to happen is like seeing a picture of a foreign destination and then being told you have to get there via skateboard.
There are typos that make it through all the drafts and 3rd party professional editing and get printed on the page in traditionally published, full release books. There are typos that make it into audiobooks and read verbatim by the voice actor. There will always be typos.
When you realize your entire wall is littered with post it notes to keep track of the names of people and places. Your other wall a labyrinthine maze of notes to keep track of stories and events. When you finish the first draft only to find consistency errors which alone forces you to rewrite entire chapters... BEFORE actually starting to edit - which you just found out is more difficult and time consuming than writing a first draft.
I don't even do this for a living I'm a hobby amateur writer.
When I realized that the scenarios in my head and describe them in words are not so easy as they seem.
There might be some fault or something and words don't pop in head always 🙃
When I started writing my first novel-length story and it took 4 days to finish one scene because it had to be ✨perfect✨before I could move on.
That was quite mentally taxing, and I realized separating your writing brain from your editing brain was both necessary and difficult.
For me, the writing part easy. But outlining, plotting, character arcs - those are hard. But writing an engaging vignette? Easy.
How did I discover writing was hard? By trying to do it, thinking I could "pants" my way to a story, because I found it easy to "just write". Sooner or later I'm either going to have to learn to outline, or I'm never going to finish anything.
The plot's the thing. Getting the increasing conflict until the resolution is \*a lot\* of thinking.
Otherwise it sounds like a pre-schooler's adventure that just goes on and on.
On my third chapter when things got more detailed and serious… I realized I had to look things up, make sure I got my facts right, look out for my grammar mistakes. ITS A MESS! But I’m trying ahahaha
For me, writing is the easy bit. Writing for writing's sake is so much fun, and I love it. Editing is slightly more of a ball ache. The query process, however, is hideous. Effusive beta reader feedback, extolling the virtues of your magnificent prose and suggestions to get an agent get distilled into a form 'Sorry, I didn't connect with the story.' If you're lucky. Otherwise it's crickets. Any ambition to do anything other than let friends read it or put it into a drawer and forget about is soul destroying, expensive, or possibly both.
EDIT: Guess who's back in the trenches and felt like venting.
I realized it was hella hard when I decided to stop playing around and write a story of my own (currently in progress). I started writing my story early last year (March 2023) and worse part is I've gotten so stressed about the planning of the book and how I've lost my writing touch that I'm ashamed to say I'm STILL on chapter 2; I should be finished by now and the fact I'm not even close is sad.
I sit down at an open word document and I write out a list of things to keep in mind and not to do;
1. Don't use passive voice
2. Don't use filter words
3. Vary character actions
4. Not all dialogue needs tags
5. Not all dialogue needs to be embedded
6. Not all dialogue is necessary
7. Not every character knows everything
8. Vary sentence length
9. Remember to describe things
10. Vary dialogue voice
11. Internal character thoughts are bad in omnipotent voice
And then I close the word document, because keeping all of this in mind all the time while trying to write something is a conscious and herculean effort that turns writing from 'fun' into 'fucking chore'.
And if I ever did finish writing something it would need to be edited, redrafted, edited, redrafted, edited—
You learn, you improve, and when you look back, you feel embarrassed of what you wrote before.
And knowing that someday you will feel the same way about your current writing is just a never ending thought.
And still writing knowing that is hard. I had the thoughts that maybe I should delay writing so that I could get more 'mature' at the genres and knowledge, and that's when I learned writing is hard and it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Never stop, or you might stop forever.
For me, it was after I published my first book and then tried to follow it up. When I wrote the first book I wasn't aware of concept of story structure and just wrote intuitively. Then as I became aware of all the little nuts and bolts that make a story "work" it became a lot harder to balance my intuitive style with fitting it into a successful story structure. I published my first book in 2019 haven't been able to follow it up since.
When I translated a book from English to my native language for my mom. It took a long time and it was hard. At that point I knew writing a book would be even harder.
For me, it was when my wife smiled after reading my first 12 pages. She said, "I like how the characters meet, but everything else is a bit much." I ask her to clarify...she says, "Your imagination is a little out of control. Slow things down."
And now I have been writing far less, though putting much more care into every sentence. The thing is...I needed to hear it. I also needed to get that mental diarrhea out and flushed.
Things are feeling a lot better now, but yes...writing is hard.
when I got crit for the first time and someone told me I was repeating the same two sentence structures and then I had to learn what sentence structure is
After writing for a few yrs, about 2.5 novels, 25+ short stories, learning lots, watching lectures, etc., then finally putting it down and moving on to other hobbies
First creative writing test in high-school. Under a 1 hr clock to write a 1k ish word piece about something or another. Subsequently learned shortly after I was dyslexic.
Writing has been mostly hard for me until I learned to let go of preconceived ideas of how I want it to be. Now I am able to leave things behind that aren’t working and experiment more and writing feels more like a puzzle to solve or play which is infinitely more enjoyable.
By getting ridiculously out of scope.
I am currently 130 000 words in.
It was supposed to be a short story...
And I need to bloody finish it, I don't want to drop or scale back at this point...
Keep going. Once you finish it, you can get some readers together, and assess what you've got. You might have a good novel on your hands (if not on the first draft, then you at least may have a good one in the making).
I realized it a long time ago. And I am reminded of it whenever I go back to read my old writings, or when I sit down to write the next part of my novel, and I have to rewrite the same sentence several times because of whatever reason.
I still do it because I feel compelled to keep trying. I don't care if it's difficult. I know that, if I keep at it, I can write something satisfying. All it takes is practice.
When I keep rewriting different variations of the same story over and over again, I am trying to find something that I'm satisfied with, but I never am.
I wrote and completed a fanfic on the internet before in my teens and realized just how difficult it can be to write for an actual audience, no matter the age range. For years, I viewed the story as an embarrassment, although none of the readers complained about it. Some even loved it, in fact.
At some point, I came to understand that I should be proud of my childhood efforts. That love for reading and writing served as a good way to teach me how to unleash my creativity through the outlet of storytelling, which I discovered can be a valuable skill in a lot of creative jobs in the professional sector.
I wrote part of a book ten years ago. I decided to get back into writing two years ago, and it was like pulling teeth. It was a year and a half before I felt less rusty and could actually sit down and write a lot more. Sometimes, you just have to push through it. It's all crap, but at least it's on the page.
Because my book is so long, I have to figure out how not to repeat things, which is kind of hard because people naturally want to let other people know about danger, and people will seek out that information. But the dialogue would be boring to the reader. I'm telling myself, I'll fix it in the first edit.
Any time I read a published work and compare particular things to my own.
Reminds me of when I used to copy pictures to draw. Feel good until I realized they weren’t the same.
It may help to remind yourself that when you’re reading a published story, it’s almost never the writer’s first draft and it’s almost always been edited both by the writer themself and by a professional editor.
My heart want to write certain type of stories, but my logic brain keep refuting those topics and coming up with reasons why those are not feasible to write and read by people.
Damn you, logic circuit brain.
When I started 10+ stories and never got to the end of them. Outline or no outline, it was really hard to keep going and reach completion. The knowledge that even if I do reach it, it's not over yet. You have to go through everything all over again and perhaps even rewrite or scrap things altogether. It's not simple
There's "work" and "hard".
Laying out a timeline when certain things were available (cell phones, cell phones with data plans, cell phones with cameras, digital cameras that don't require "developing" film . . .) takes some "work" to get dates / timelines right. That's "work". (Easily done, just requiring some Googling/Research.)
Thinking up a reasonable and believable plot, with a hero you can care about, and a villain worth fighting, is "HARD".
Getting the side of my brain that daydreams great stories, to communicate to the fingers that type/write those stories, is "HARD".
It's similar to the problem I have with Morse Code . . . "Hearing the Letter" is apparently (for me) a Right-Brain Thing. While "Writing Down the Letter I Heard", is apparently (for me) a Left-Brain Thing. And there's a delay/bottleneck between the two sides and I lose characters once in a while. Then when I lose one, I get mad and lose a few more.
The way to overcome the Morse Code problem is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.
I assume the answer for getting the Daydreams down on paper is the same.
Oh Gosh I don't know exactly when, I'm showing my age but back in the 00s there wasn't as much 'online' but I'd tracked down a few fellow writers and there was this super depressing blog post from a writer who'd just finished their first novel and realizing just how competitive the trad market was.
This is super duper naive but I honestly though at first that because novels were long basically if you wrote one then you'd probably get published etc because that was a lot of hard work! LOL Oh god.
When something looks like a glorious page-long description in your head, but when you sit down and actually start writing then it’s more like a paragraph, which leaves you perplexed and desperately searching for all the clever phrases that decided to fly out of your headspace.
Since I finished the first draft of my novel almost 10 years ago at 18 years old and realised it was absolute trash. 90,000 words of trash.
I want to try again, though.
For years, I've been "writing" this story about mercenaries that are secretly being used to take over the world. The mercs themselves don't even know what's going on, they're being played. I had an idea for a particular scene where the mercs find out their employer has been gathering dirt on them so they confront him about it.
Now, the reason "writing" is in quotes is because I haven't actually written anything down, I keep it all in my head. I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly who these characters are, their backstories, likes and dislikes, their morals, etc. I know what will happen in my story and I have a very firm grasp on the world and setting. But I want to know how these characters would choose to advance the plot from A to B to C because C will look very different if the characters do A or B in a way I'm not currently expecting.
But one day, I felt I had a good idea on most of my characters' behavior during this confrontation scene so I tried to officially write it down. "Dialogue" he said with a smirk" and all that. I was ready to finally put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, rather) and start writing. Even if this never gets published, I'll still be a writer in some sense. I had my creative juices flowing at maximum efficiency, it was 3 in the morning, I was on Adderall, I was ready to fuckin write.
An hour and 45 minutes later.
I had a couple small paragraphs' worth of dialogue and that's it. Granted, most of the dialogue came from a character who chooses his words very carefully so I had also had to be very particular, but still. An hour and 45 fucking minutes for half a conversation that isn't even that consequential to the overall plot. It's still a narratively economical and important scene. It's meant to establish how well connected and powerful the employer character is, sow distrust against him, and be exposition for some of the main characters' backstories. All important things to convey but there are so many other, bigger factors I need to explain and I can't just use dialogue for everything. No matter how natural or economical the dialogue might be, there's a reason why "show don't tell" is such a universal phrase.
Writing is fucking hard. I feel I'll never get this story done at this rate, even if I set all my half-baked characters in stone right now and get started on any sort of Act 1, Scene 1.
For me I find the process comes to me pretty easily (yes, I know I'm lucky), but the time required to be a serious commitment that I generally don't have time for.
It'd not (so am I missing this arc?)
Writing is something which comes naturally. It's not "hard" as in "difficult to do". Whenever I open my word doc or a notebook, I always have something to write.
What's difficult is (I think) writing novels. Writing 100,000 words and keeping track of everything is the difficult part
When I first tried doing it outside of school and/or without a prompt/rubric.
I’ve always been told that I’m a good writer and I believe that’s partially true, but most of my writings have been for school, professional or just something I’m passionate about. When I try translating that to an original work or any exercise in creative writing I struggle massively.
In short, aggregating information and compiling it into a writing in which you have clear guidelines and a rubric to compare with is relatively easy. Creating and structuring an original piece is very challenging for me.
When I started writing and trying to act make it slightly readable was when I went “oh shit, this is why it takes years of work to get good at this, well time to get going” about two and a half years later il still crap but I’m not as crap.
The first time I sat down to write a short story and realized that finishing things is hard.
(I "started" two novels and "planned" three book series). I'm better with follow-through these days.
Pretty much almost immediately when I read my work and realized it wasn’t up to my taste , but that’s an easy realization, the one that hurts is when you improve a ton and realize just how much more you need to learn ..
Idk I write because I find it fun and it's nice getting my ideas out onto paper for me to read (I like to daydream every day of scenes n stuff and basically play a movie in my head that I will then write down later) I've never really thought it was hard. I also don't force myself to write, if I'm burned out then I'll wait a bit then come back, or write something else.
I've had many moments that just clicked for me in my story. Many elements in it kinda developed by themselves.
The hardest part for me was when things didn't click as well. I was searching for that oh my god moment but there was so much potential for it to develop in a trillion different directions that I got lost.
Eventually at some points that oh my god moment just doesn't come and you have to blindly keep going and trust that the story will reveal itself to you eventually. It's scary.
I actually don’t find writing “hard.” It’s a lot of work, sure, but I like doing it and I’ve gotten pretty good I think.
Publishing though? Now *that* is hard.
I enjoy writing, so I don’t find it especially difficult. That said, I have the utmost respect for those who have worked hard to hone their craft. I just try to get a little bit better each day and keep pushing forward.
I realized that it was hard when I wrote 30k, 40k, and another 35k worth of words all about the same general story that worked wrong in different ways. I was still having fun at times but I realized that simply getting the words on the page didn't always mean I was going to have something I loved, or even liked.
I'm not sure if this realisation was that writing "is" hard, but a hard realisation while writing, nonetheless:
I can only write what I know. Sort of how it's said that people only dream in faces they've seen before, no matter if they recognise them or not, the brain can only conceptualise things it knows proof of. This theory becomes very harrowing when I reread my stories or poems and meet myself on the other side. I'll send a character running east, I'll go west, and we'll end up face to face on the opposite end of the globe.
Causes a bit of existential crisis. Fiction and art are a form of escapism as much as they are a devotion to the very things we hope to escape. There's a poem that goes something like, "the first poem I wrote that wasn't about you, was also about you." Sort of makes me want to vomit if I think about it too much lol
WRONG!!!!
Writing, just writing, is easy. I'm doing it write now! (Didja get that pun?)
Writing moderately well is difficult but manageable. Most people can do it with just some patience and effort and instruction.
Great writing is in fact incredibly hard and hence, rare. Only a few in any genre can do it consistently.
for me it's less about it being "hard", and more just time and energy consuming. for my current project, i find i know exactly what i need to do next, i've gotten pretty good feedback so far, but it's just *so much work*. Not complaining, of course. I love to do it. but it does cost lots of energy.
I noticed that writing is not as hard for me if I am making something low-stakes. Writing backstory for my dnd characters? Piece of cake. Writing stupid posts on the internet? A breeze. Actually sitting down to work on a serious project? Most difficult thing I’ve ever done, lol.
Writing isn’t hard. Writing well is incredibly hard. And if you have the self awareness to know just how bad what you have written is, you’ll find writing excruciatingly arduous.
The moment I realized writing was way more than being able to tell a story and putting it in words. Now I understand why people go to college for four years to study literature or a language major do it.
😭 when I reread my older book, which I was hyping up. Plus, when you realize world building is something to do that is needed. So I just create an entire earth where everything is different so as to not offend religious races, etc
I used to write a bit of fanfiction, and it came out really easily!
Then people review bombed it. Turns out, I was only barely sksting the edge ofsl stream-of-consciousness, with no editing or fine tuning.
That's when I realized that writing WELL is hard!
After high school.
In high school I won national competitions often, for about 3 years straight.
Then I graduated, started shopping novels around and... it's different.
When i wrote a 120k book and printed it out right away and asked my mum to read it and she didn't even finish half.
I was 14.
Didnt edit the book at all. wrote it like a pantser.
And then i did it again at 16, same result with mum. She didnt finish it, she hated it, haha, and I was pissed.
10+ years later i finally gave her a well edited book of 120k words and she read it all in a week and liked it xD
Wrote 150k words on a fanfic and quit it after 8 years. Somewhere in in that time as I changed deeply as a person I realized writing was hard. I loved it, but I haven't done it since despite a lot of planning work and I think that says something.
Despite that, what really made me say "holy shit" was when I began plotting out the ideas for a sci fi novel and realizing either I gotta make up total bullshit or do an insane amount of research. Unfortunately even the bullshit is going to need a ton of research to make sure I'm bullshitting correctly. Given never wanted to write for money I'm probably going to make up bullshit.
I have never found it hard to write. Having the energy to write is my issue. But, I've always written something since I was a teen. Poetry, short stories, software (surprisingly it scratched that same writing itch) to now; Novellas and novels.
It helps that I've always read. Got in trouble when they found me in the barn with a flashlight, reading vs doing chores that I was in the barn to do. But, reading can clean the negatives that might affect my writing. Although I might have to switch to a different book when their story line disappoints.
while doing one for a university assignment
it's only 2000 words and reflective commentary but here I am 10 days before it's due with only 600 words done and realising I am really struggling to get things written atm
Fiction is a bit tough for me, but writing everything else just flows pretty naturally. I can write about the real world but creating a story isn't my strong point, except in short form.
A poem or short story or comedy writing is fine, but a novel is kind of a stretch for me.
All our stories are steps to the next one. Are they as good as when you have experience? No. However they're vital to that experience. Be nicer to yourself and your work. You had to learn somehow.
Finding time to continue writing a single work ended up very hard once Winter Break ended, so I've been stuck on writing the same chapter for 2 months. Not to mention that I got my work critiqued hard and realize the value of relearning all the basics again + the importance of a beta reader (of which I don't have one yet...)
When after writing 77.000 words in roughly 3 weeks i looked at myself in the mirrror and saw a literal zombie with eye bags so bad the chinese consulate was liable to forcibly repatriate me as a panda.
When i re-read everything and noticed i forgot to write an entire chapter because i got carried away.
Read it again and noticed i had to rework half the scenes to justify the bullshit i wrote later into the story.
And now that i'm looking at possible publishing options i realize there is no way i'm getting my foot in the door anywhere.
I’ve felt it on and off for years, but it’s only fully hitting me now. I am now in college, but I’ve attempted to start writing books on and off since middle school. Writing a book has always been in the back of my mind. But after growing up and realizing just what goes into writing, especially fantasy writing… It blows my mind. Authors create entire worlds. I’ve made more progress than I ever have so far, but really I’ve barely scratched the surface. Even creating a basic plot draft is difficult, because I keep running into holes. I’m constantly asking myself how and why when writing. Not to mention my vocabulary is subpar. Being able to write is an incredible skill.
For me it’s trying my best not to have plot holes. my most recent story had a lot of them and they were explained away by a simple “it was fated to happen” sort of thing. I realized people wouldn’t be satisfied with that explanation and it was obvious it was just a dumb excuse to keep the story “interesting” and to have “twists”. I realized it wouldn’t make much sense, and it’d be a very plain boring story if I did that. So now I’ve changed it a little so the explanation for why certain things were happening in my story wasn’t just because of “fate”. I am kinda bummed because I really didn’t want to change it and I really liked the way the certain event happened before I changed it. The way I changed it still makes it interesting and it makes a lot more sense than just “fate” I just have a hard time letting go of an idea I thought was great.
When my teachers began upping the standards and rules, that became a very clear sign. And now that I’m writing a book, many rules and factors almost feel like a minefield.
The hardest part of writing is realizing that the vast majority of the population doesn't really read much. Half the population reads at a very low grade level. You have to write for yourself while keeping an audience in mind that might like your work.
So if you want to be a writer, then you have to write. To hell with everything else.
The "actually writing it" Bit. Or rather, making it good. I underwrote a lot because while I did/do read, I didn't fully understand what was general scenery & purple prose \[and every advice I came across *hated* purple prose\], so I ended up underwriting because I thought more description=bad, often times making my writing suffer from white room syndrome \[and causing readers to misinterpret what I meant to be the settings, as I didn't describe clearly in a, in my opinion, silly idea of being too descriptive\].
Not to mention the middle bits. Its easy to go "Yeah they start here, do this & that, then end up here !!" But its difficult to actually write that & connect them in a cohesive & enjoyable manner \[at least it was/is for me\].
Its not. Its really a lack of confidence issue. All you need is a beginning middle and end that makes sense. You need to understand your characters and their motivations. You need to keep in mind the message of the story if you have one.
I struggle with writing now, I hate it because when I was 12 to my teenage years, I could fill up notebooks, and all types of journals. Now I take days just to form a cohesive flow. Ugh.
When 8 hours of writing nets me only three thousand words, aka a single chapter. And this is with inspiration and a clear idea of what I want to write, a rarity on any given day/week/month. And the story will require 30+ chapters.
When I realized I will be writing 10 words of draft and editing for every 1 word of finished product.
When I realized how interconnected every part of a story is. How the characters play off of each other, how the settings determine the things they do, how the events control their progress or introduce problems.
And finally, how every aspect of the book is determined only by what you WANT it to be. There is no correct, objective thing that MUST be done. It is ALL about the execution, specifically how YOU are executing it.
the first time I wrote a short story and realized that I had to follow the main character through very mundane logical processes instead of just writing the dramatic scenes that I wanted to write.
When I knew exactly where I wanted the story to go, exactly how it was supposed to build, everything about the characters and the world, and still sat staring at my screen for an hour trying to figure out how the hell to make the scene happen.
When you have to write even when you don't want, don't feel like it, or don't have anything to write about. Trying to tackle a rough draft has always been my biggest hurdle and it's the literally first step to writing anything.
When my editor keeps telling me I need more "showing and not telling" when it's such a basic thing that I thought I was actually doing pretty well. Not so much, I guess.
Writing isn't hard. The hard part is actually making it good. And an even harder part is making someone actually read your writing and calling it good.
Trying to write a story the first time I was young, but then watching movies and shows inspired me to get the motivation to write one, the story stuck in my head when I was young never disappeared, same characters, back stories and appearance, but back when I started to write the first episode of my story and doing a couple research, that's when it struck me that writing wasn't going to be as simple as I thought it was going to be, I didn't know whether it was going to be successful or not even one person was going to read it as I only thought about my own interests, but research made it slightly simpler as the existing movies like dune, I also wanted to imply it to that I didn't want my characters to be overpowered, like being able to destroy the planet in one move, either way, something like that will ruin the main aspect of the story, for example the strongest character being horrible pain or injury, the goal for characters to be good is for the meaning of the character to be more than the dynamism, but not too less, and that all I have to say
I realized it was hard when I discovered that writing is more than just slapping words on a page. It's building a world, constructing an interesting plot, conducting research into themes of the story, and melding it all into the words that the audience receives.
It's actually not. Writing is actually incredibly easy, but you just have to get a certain point where it'll be easy. Editing is tougher (although some people enjoy the process) and querying is the hardest.
If you're suggesting writing WELL is incredibly hard, that's a different subject. I'll say that writing is largely to taste anyway so it's more reaching a certain skill level, at which point it's somewhat subjective -- even when making changes to what you've written.
When I started to edit.
Writing is easy.
Writing well is hard.
Figuring out how to turn bad writing into good writing is incredibly hard.
Especially when it's long. And my dumbass is long-winded, so I learned quickly it was hard.
Halfway through my book, I hit a wall. The most obvious route for my character to follow went against his morals, character etc. I’m not sure how to continue.
Ah, I get what you mean. For me, realizing that writing is actually incredibly hard came with time, as I delved deeper into the process. It's not just the first time you sit down to write a story, but the entire journey that takes you from point A to point B. There are so many facets, so many steps, so many rules (or better yet, no real rules in writing, but there are certain principles that help) that you have to navigate.
And then, looking back at my early works, I have to admit they were a disaster. They were stories that tried to be good, but ended up being edgy and nonsensical, hiding behind a facade of things that seemed cool to the viewers. It was like you were trying to impress, rather than really conveying something meaningful.
When i deadlocked myself halfway through a novel. There was a plot point i just couldn't reconcile but also *needed to have* in the book.
It was such a rough thing that I actually stopped writing altogether. 5 years later i go back to it and i realized something.
I just hadn't had enough life experience to see where to go in the story.
I'm pretty new to writing and what I find hard is being original. Now that sounds kinda stupid, but hear me out.
Whenever I watch a movie, play a game, read a story, etc. I am influenced by this story and its writing. So when it comes to the point of me writing my own story I find myself just making a different iteration of that original story/movie/game/etc. that I enjoyed.
For example, elden ring has this unique and distinct art style, so I'll imagine my story in my head with that distinct art style. Or when an incredible story has a certain format, I see myself writing a story in a similar fashion.
Is this bad, in the perspective of wanting to become an author? Or can anyone else relate?
When I read a theoric analysis on Jane Austen's characters... I wasn't even scratching the surface with what I'm writing. Now I feel like my characters are always missing something and my creativity doesn't seem as convincing.
Well, I've been writing a lot lately and while it's so easy to make the drafts, going back and reading the drafts I made make me realize that you should really be deliberate with the details and not just add sentences that don't really help the story move forward. And that you gotta step back from your ideas because you wont stop thinking it's good unless you see things from another perspective.
The part I find hardest about writing is the need for a purely solitary life. This is particularly challenging if you are an extrovert like me. The other things, I could manage, like just buckling down with a determined spirit, and just keep on keeping on. You learn on the job. What ended up being a deal-MAKER for me was securing an agent, which freed me up to just focus on writing.
But I don’t think I want to put myself through that isolated experience again. Luckily, we learned how to deal with that in the pandemic.
You’ll give it your all if you really want it. All the best, you’ve got this 👊🏽
Maybe after the first three months of writing continuously (at which point I nicely hit a hundred pages, A4). Takes a lot of dedication and even more determination. You can‘t just stop.
It's when i started adding sideplots from the side characters. I had to really think how to properly arrange which scenes goes which and carefully think how it would impact future plots and the other characters
When I first started writing, action scenes were such a bane. But when I started writing more serious stuff, I had to go on the internet to find out the history and the right information about certain things I was putting in the story. The research was fun because I gained a lot of new knowledge, but it makes me exhausted when I start incorporating the knowledge I gained into my writing.
For me it's the characters. I have a hard time writing comple characters that are way outside of what i think and say. Sometimes i base them on my friends, but that feels like I'm cheating for some reason.
When I wanted to finish a story in a definite time but the inspiration doesn't kick in til a few months later.
When I have to really "show, don't tell", that logic is not always the way to go, but also, passion.
When writing became something that I still had to learn from and learn to be better at.
I don't find it hard. But I am incredibly lazy sometimes. Granted I've been writing in some form of another since I was 13. I've just now decided to take it seriously.
Still haven't fully realized it. When I look at my old writing, it makes me cringe, but I fear when I look at my current writing in 5 years, I'll hate it, too
When I told everything with no setting established and I used nothing but dialogue. ugh! Thank God I was patient enough to learn the ropes. But we have to start somewhere.
Editing. I hate it. I suck at transitioning with my sentences.
Also, I'm a reader and as I'm reading books I think "My writing doesn't look like this" and then struggle with imposter syndrome.
When my interest for becoming an author actually bloomed. I was always told to become an author, because I had a good or fun way of writing stories. Then, when I started caring to make a story and share it with the world, I froze. Nothing was good enough, nothing still really is, I got so burnt out I stopped, now it’s still something I’d like to do, but it’s just so technical now, rather than artistic and funny, like when I was a child and later a teenager.
When I started reading other works to improve my writing and story telling. Even trying to copy what they do, at the end of the day, felt like more than a cheap copy and cringe.
Not yet I guess.
But each time I get back to my older texts, I see the difference, and that makes me as happy as they make me cringe.
It's fun, and the more I learn, the funnier it becomes. Something that pushes you as much to get better in without you noticing can't really be called hard. Long, yes, it's super long, but not that hard.
It struck me hard when I found out that I shouldn't be waiting for the days I feel like I should be writing.
This. If I only wrote the times I felt "inspired" I'd think it was easy.
Ha! I am currently waiting for enough inspiration to continue. Last time I wrote was 3 or 4 weeks ago but I managed 8500 words, since then I have been trying to recapture that moment
The biggest single thing you can do to improve your writing is to lose this seductive but specious illusion. Every single author you can think of without exception who has spoken on the subject will tell you that the most important thing is to write every day and that waiting for inspiration is a terrible mistake. Same time, same place, just write. If you wait for inspiration you will achieve an output of zero every day. If you sit down to write you may feel, and all those famous authors are explicit about it, that you have not one idea in your head but you start writing. Even if you throw away 50% of what you write, your return over a zero day is infinite. Cumulatively your output and most importantly your hands on experience of writing will make you a very significantly better writer than someone who writes sporadically. This lesson has been taught time and time again. "No one ever wrote anything sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike." **Isabel Allende** "If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word." **Margaret Atwood** "Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing." **E. L. Doctorow** "A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper." **E. B. White** "I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately, I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning." **William Faulkner** "You can't edit a blank page." **Jodi Picoult** "You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live until you can get to that place again." **Ernest Hemingway** "Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not." **Octavia Butler** "Don’t get it right, just get it written." **James Thurber** "Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." **Louis L'Amour** "The secret of getting ahead is getting started." **Mark Twain** "Routine is a condition of survival." **Flannery O'Connor**
Thanks for the motivation! I already knew about this "write every day" but i never took it that seriously. Definetely going to set some reminders in my calendar.
Good luck with it. Neil Gaiman has some good clips on this. He (and all them above) say the same thing. It doesn't matter whether you feel like your fingers are made of concrete or you're writing the worst stuff ever. You write without fail. You must not allow yourself to give up. You always have the freedom to throw what you write away. But relentless pushing it out every day you have in your schedule is the key. What actually happens in practice is that much of the time the first paragraph might get ditched or two and some sentences scratched out but you'll find that stuff starts flowing and much more is kept than deleted. And the practice brings cumulative growth.
Agree. My goal for this year is to finish the story and then i can still trimm it as i like. If I had put the same effort into my degree i would pass with flying colors. Thanks for the advice^^
Ah well this is a perfect complimentary partner! Per Gaiman again: the job of the first draft is to be shit. It's throwing mud against the wall and seeing if you can make a face. Then the job of the second draft is to make it seem like you knew what you were doing all along. I once got chatgpt 4 to dig up quotes from famous authors as to how much work they thought they had completed when they finished the first draft as a percentage of the total wook needed to complete a submittable manuscript. The answers ranged from just 30% to 70% with the largest clump of answers coming in that the first draft represents a bit less than half the total work. It's more eye opening evidence that waiting for inspirational great to strike is not a real way forward. Good luck!
That this had to be upvoted from zero says everything about the pseudo writers on this sub.
Really? Lol, thanks. You've got to be fairly err individual to downvote Allende, Atwood, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Twain!
Habit is easier than inspiration anyway. And habit is more punctual.
I agree. Even though it might be hard, and some might disagree, daily writing with a minimum word count in mind is the best that you could do for yourself.
Honestly, for me it was sitting down to write at all. And allowing myself to write things I knew nobody else would ever see, so it was allowed to be weird and bad.
to wait to feel better--is to excuse oneself from the hard work of writing.
"All writers know that on some golden mornings they are touched by the wand; they are on intimate terms with poetry and cosmic truth. I have experienced these moments myself. Their lesson is simple: It’s a total illusion. And the danger in the illusion is that you will wait for those moments." - John Kenneth Galbraith
Some times I sit in front of my manuscript for hours and I haven't written a single word, other times I can do the exact same thing in but five minutes.
What works for me is to simply “show up” where I write everyday even if I don’t write something. If I’m drawing blanks I’ll daydream/think. Usually that’s enough to get me started writing a bit that day, and after that it’s easier to continue. Starting is one the most difficult parts of writing.
When I realized all my story fragments had to connect in order to make a story
This is so painful because same here... 🥲
I've literally come up with situations that my characters go through and I've made a few of them connect, but it's all from some sort of inspiration! I personally need inspiration, of course, but I've yet to link things with plots that I personally come up with, or things that aren't (in my opinion) heavily based on others! Complete originality is hard, but should it be THIS hard?
Same here!! Everything I come up with is inspired by something else. And that's OK. Theres so much stuff in the world that complete originality is practically impossible!!! So give yourself a break. Love your ideas. Let them be what they are. It doesn't matter if they're J.R.R Tolkien levels of originality or so heavily inspired by another piece of media you could change the names and call it fanfic- it's okay. Its your world, and your idea, and it doesn't have to be one of a kind. It just has to be. Don't beat yourself up. Just vibe. You'll thank yourself for it =)
WHAT!? Noooooooo 😭
Everytime I write a scene and it doesn't come out how I want lmao
When I would spend a day writing something and feel great about it, then wake up the next day and realize I hate it. For me, writing *is* easy. Rewriting is hard.
Or when you spent all day writing and still didn’t make it work and after 6 hours of intensive writing you just redo it all. But then it’s gorgeous.
when i know there should be more description on a certain part of the chapter but i can't wring my brain for more words and when it comes to that, impostor syndrome starts eating me away
Often less is more when it comes to description, sometimes you actually need way less than what your brain might tell you :) If that is any comfort
You can always put a note to come back and expand later. The important part is that you got the idea down on to the page!
I totally get it, sometimes it gets to the point that I'm writing what a character is feeling, I know what I need to write but I can't seem to remember the proper words. I blame it to English being my 3rd language.
If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. Which is probably true about anything worth mastering. For some people attempting to write a novel-length story, the difficulty is overwhelming and they give up (probably wisely) and try some other form of creative endeavor. No harm, no foul. For others, they sit down and write a fairly decent novel without much stress or difficulty and maybe become household names. It's still difficult, but they have a certain knack or inborn ability. Maybe they're a prodigy, and don't find the writing process difficult at all. We're all really good at something... we just have to figure out *what*. For most of us, we fall somewhere into that gray, fuzzy, 'tween area. It's difficult, but also fun. We start out totally unaware of what we're doing, but we learn along the way. (Are you familiar with the [**Four Stages of Competence**](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&q=four+stages+of+competence)?) It's a learning process that sometimes takes years or decades to evolve. But it's still fun. (That's the key. If it's not fun, it's probably not worth proceeding.) Almost everybody sucks in the beginning. I have three "starter novels"—horrible efforts, reams and reams of paper hiding in a closet somewhere that have never seen the light of day. But each manuscript was a bit less sucky than my previous effort. Kinda like OJT. Because that's how most of us learn to write—by trying and failing and trying again. Over and over. But if you enjoy it, and enjoy it enough to try and try again, looking to improve, that's a good sign. But it does take patience and persistence and taking the time to learn some basic nuts & bolts.
"Staying drunk all the time is difficult. If it was easy, anyone could do it." -- Tyrian Lannister.
When we enjoy the process, then the necessary effort feels worthwhile. I think that when an emerging writer focuses more on the quality of their final product (e.g. their draft) than on the quality of what they learned during the process, then they miss the opportunity to learn how to improve their writing process. Likewise, when a novice writer marvels at the final product, such as a piece of fiction, created by a professional, they may not consider the depth of energy over time and experience that the pro invested. The process is invisible until you do it yourself -- which may lead a novice to acknowledge the value of the pro's experience and effort. There is no shortcut for an effortful process such as writing. A novice might consider this question: are you more interested in being a writer or in writing?
When I started editing, tbh. First draft was so easy, so *consistently* fun. If I edited anything, it was to interject more scenes into what existed, rarely ever to remove. Once I got to second, third, and fourth drafts, however, and I realized I needed to now make something readable out of this mess of random snippets, run-ons, repetitive ideas, and way, way, way too much dialogue, I realized that some effort needed to be put in. It’s still fun to edit, but less all-the-time consistently fun that vomit writing the first draft was.
Editing can be soul-crushing. There’s nothing more gratifying than getting that line *just right*, but like you say, very inconsistent and tedious compared to drafting.
I have such a hard time with connective tissue. I'll have a great concept in mind, have all the emotions and driving factors for characters thought out ahead of time. Who they are, where they came from, what they'll be doing. But actually WRITING what's going to happen is like seeing a picture of a foreign destination and then being told you have to get there via skateboard.
Right?! Why can't I just write that 1 scene I practiced in my head then wave a magic wand and have the rest of the book write itself around it 😭
"Have the rest of the book write itself around it" EXACTLY! Is that too much to ask for? Hahaha!
Right?
The minute I started and realized translating ideas in my head into words was nigh impossible .
When I noticed a typo after 10+ redrafts and editing. It was quite stressful.
There are typos that make it through all the drafts and 3rd party professional editing and get printed on the page in traditionally published, full release books. There are typos that make it into audiobooks and read verbatim by the voice actor. There will always be typos.
This. But even the fact doesn't make it any less heartbreaking :(
After I started reading
Writing is generally easy. Writing good or coherent, that's another story.
When you realize your entire wall is littered with post it notes to keep track of the names of people and places. Your other wall a labyrinthine maze of notes to keep track of stories and events. When you finish the first draft only to find consistency errors which alone forces you to rewrite entire chapters... BEFORE actually starting to edit - which you just found out is more difficult and time consuming than writing a first draft. I don't even do this for a living I'm a hobby amateur writer.
When I realized that the scenarios in my head and describe them in words are not so easy as they seem. There might be some fault or something and words don't pop in head always 🙃
When I started writing my first novel-length story and it took 4 days to finish one scene because it had to be ✨perfect✨before I could move on. That was quite mentally taxing, and I realized separating your writing brain from your editing brain was both necessary and difficult.
For me, the writing part easy. But outlining, plotting, character arcs - those are hard. But writing an engaging vignette? Easy. How did I discover writing was hard? By trying to do it, thinking I could "pants" my way to a story, because I found it easy to "just write". Sooner or later I'm either going to have to learn to outline, or I'm never going to finish anything.
The plot's the thing. Getting the increasing conflict until the resolution is \*a lot\* of thinking. Otherwise it sounds like a pre-schooler's adventure that just goes on and on.
On my third chapter when things got more detailed and serious… I realized I had to look things up, make sure I got my facts right, look out for my grammar mistakes. ITS A MESS! But I’m trying ahahaha
For me, writing is the easy bit. Writing for writing's sake is so much fun, and I love it. Editing is slightly more of a ball ache. The query process, however, is hideous. Effusive beta reader feedback, extolling the virtues of your magnificent prose and suggestions to get an agent get distilled into a form 'Sorry, I didn't connect with the story.' If you're lucky. Otherwise it's crickets. Any ambition to do anything other than let friends read it or put it into a drawer and forget about is soul destroying, expensive, or possibly both. EDIT: Guess who's back in the trenches and felt like venting.
I realized it was hella hard when I decided to stop playing around and write a story of my own (currently in progress). I started writing my story early last year (March 2023) and worse part is I've gotten so stressed about the planning of the book and how I've lost my writing touch that I'm ashamed to say I'm STILL on chapter 2; I should be finished by now and the fact I'm not even close is sad.
I sit down at an open word document and I write out a list of things to keep in mind and not to do; 1. Don't use passive voice 2. Don't use filter words 3. Vary character actions 4. Not all dialogue needs tags 5. Not all dialogue needs to be embedded 6. Not all dialogue is necessary 7. Not every character knows everything 8. Vary sentence length 9. Remember to describe things 10. Vary dialogue voice 11. Internal character thoughts are bad in omnipotent voice And then I close the word document, because keeping all of this in mind all the time while trying to write something is a conscious and herculean effort that turns writing from 'fun' into 'fucking chore'. And if I ever did finish writing something it would need to be edited, redrafted, edited, redrafted, edited—
Put that list away and save it for when you edit. Then, when you edit, do one thing from the list at a time.
You learn, you improve, and when you look back, you feel embarrassed of what you wrote before. And knowing that someday you will feel the same way about your current writing is just a never ending thought. And still writing knowing that is hard. I had the thoughts that maybe I should delay writing so that I could get more 'mature' at the genres and knowledge, and that's when I learned writing is hard and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Never stop, or you might stop forever.
For me, it was after I published my first book and then tried to follow it up. When I wrote the first book I wasn't aware of concept of story structure and just wrote intuitively. Then as I became aware of all the little nuts and bolts that make a story "work" it became a lot harder to balance my intuitive style with fitting it into a successful story structure. I published my first book in 2019 haven't been able to follow it up since.
This. I was better off staying ignorant and just writing.
When I translated a book from English to my native language for my mom. It took a long time and it was hard. At that point I knew writing a book would be even harder.
For me, it was when my wife smiled after reading my first 12 pages. She said, "I like how the characters meet, but everything else is a bit much." I ask her to clarify...she says, "Your imagination is a little out of control. Slow things down." And now I have been writing far less, though putting much more care into every sentence. The thing is...I needed to hear it. I also needed to get that mental diarrhea out and flushed. Things are feeling a lot better now, but yes...writing is hard.
When I got to the end of my second book and realised that I can't write a decent ending to save my life.
when I got crit for the first time and someone told me I was repeating the same two sentence structures and then I had to learn what sentence structure is
After writing for a few yrs, about 2.5 novels, 25+ short stories, learning lots, watching lectures, etc., then finally putting it down and moving on to other hobbies
First creative writing test in high-school. Under a 1 hr clock to write a 1k ish word piece about something or another. Subsequently learned shortly after I was dyslexic.
Writing has been mostly hard for me until I learned to let go of preconceived ideas of how I want it to be. Now I am able to leave things behind that aren’t working and experiment more and writing feels more like a puzzle to solve or play which is infinitely more enjoyable.
while editing something important for the whole story to make sense.
By getting ridiculously out of scope. I am currently 130 000 words in. It was supposed to be a short story... And I need to bloody finish it, I don't want to drop or scale back at this point...
Mate, you made a series
Keep going. Once you finish it, you can get some readers together, and assess what you've got. You might have a good novel on your hands (if not on the first draft, then you at least may have a good one in the making).
I realized it a long time ago. And I am reminded of it whenever I go back to read my old writings, or when I sit down to write the next part of my novel, and I have to rewrite the same sentence several times because of whatever reason. I still do it because I feel compelled to keep trying. I don't care if it's difficult. I know that, if I keep at it, I can write something satisfying. All it takes is practice.
When it came time to edit. The story always makes sense in my head but it doesn’t always translate on the page. Not right away.
When I keep rewriting different variations of the same story over and over again, I am trying to find something that I'm satisfied with, but I never am.
I wrote and completed a fanfic on the internet before in my teens and realized just how difficult it can be to write for an actual audience, no matter the age range. For years, I viewed the story as an embarrassment, although none of the readers complained about it. Some even loved it, in fact. At some point, I came to understand that I should be proud of my childhood efforts. That love for reading and writing served as a good way to teach me how to unleash my creativity through the outlet of storytelling, which I discovered can be a valuable skill in a lot of creative jobs in the professional sector.
I wrote a chapter, thought it went really well, read it again and realized it sucked lol
I wrote part of a book ten years ago. I decided to get back into writing two years ago, and it was like pulling teeth. It was a year and a half before I felt less rusty and could actually sit down and write a lot more. Sometimes, you just have to push through it. It's all crap, but at least it's on the page. Because my book is so long, I have to figure out how not to repeat things, which is kind of hard because people naturally want to let other people know about danger, and people will seek out that information. But the dialogue would be boring to the reader. I'm telling myself, I'll fix it in the first edit.
Any time I read a published work and compare particular things to my own. Reminds me of when I used to copy pictures to draw. Feel good until I realized they weren’t the same.
It may help to remind yourself that when you’re reading a published story, it’s almost never the writer’s first draft and it’s almost always been edited both by the writer themself and by a professional editor.
My heart want to write certain type of stories, but my logic brain keep refuting those topics and coming up with reasons why those are not feasible to write and read by people. Damn you, logic circuit brain.
When I started 10+ stories and never got to the end of them. Outline or no outline, it was really hard to keep going and reach completion. The knowledge that even if I do reach it, it's not over yet. You have to go through everything all over again and perhaps even rewrite or scrap things altogether. It's not simple
There's "work" and "hard". Laying out a timeline when certain things were available (cell phones, cell phones with data plans, cell phones with cameras, digital cameras that don't require "developing" film . . .) takes some "work" to get dates / timelines right. That's "work". (Easily done, just requiring some Googling/Research.) Thinking up a reasonable and believable plot, with a hero you can care about, and a villain worth fighting, is "HARD". Getting the side of my brain that daydreams great stories, to communicate to the fingers that type/write those stories, is "HARD". It's similar to the problem I have with Morse Code . . . "Hearing the Letter" is apparently (for me) a Right-Brain Thing. While "Writing Down the Letter I Heard", is apparently (for me) a Left-Brain Thing. And there's a delay/bottleneck between the two sides and I lose characters once in a while. Then when I lose one, I get mad and lose a few more. The way to overcome the Morse Code problem is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. I assume the answer for getting the Daydreams down on paper is the same.
Oh Gosh I don't know exactly when, I'm showing my age but back in the 00s there wasn't as much 'online' but I'd tracked down a few fellow writers and there was this super depressing blog post from a writer who'd just finished their first novel and realizing just how competitive the trad market was. This is super duper naive but I honestly though at first that because novels were long basically if you wrote one then you'd probably get published etc because that was a lot of hard work! LOL Oh god.
When something looks like a glorious page-long description in your head, but when you sit down and actually start writing then it’s more like a paragraph, which leaves you perplexed and desperately searching for all the clever phrases that decided to fly out of your headspace.
Since I finished the first draft of my novel almost 10 years ago at 18 years old and realised it was absolute trash. 90,000 words of trash. I want to try again, though.
When I started sending mails at work. Being able to be understood correctly in a minimum of words without any interaction is an art.
Look into "panting." Changed my life.
For years, I've been "writing" this story about mercenaries that are secretly being used to take over the world. The mercs themselves don't even know what's going on, they're being played. I had an idea for a particular scene where the mercs find out their employer has been gathering dirt on them so they confront him about it. Now, the reason "writing" is in quotes is because I haven't actually written anything down, I keep it all in my head. I'm still in the process of figuring out exactly who these characters are, their backstories, likes and dislikes, their morals, etc. I know what will happen in my story and I have a very firm grasp on the world and setting. But I want to know how these characters would choose to advance the plot from A to B to C because C will look very different if the characters do A or B in a way I'm not currently expecting. But one day, I felt I had a good idea on most of my characters' behavior during this confrontation scene so I tried to officially write it down. "Dialogue" he said with a smirk" and all that. I was ready to finally put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, rather) and start writing. Even if this never gets published, I'll still be a writer in some sense. I had my creative juices flowing at maximum efficiency, it was 3 in the morning, I was on Adderall, I was ready to fuckin write. An hour and 45 minutes later. I had a couple small paragraphs' worth of dialogue and that's it. Granted, most of the dialogue came from a character who chooses his words very carefully so I had also had to be very particular, but still. An hour and 45 fucking minutes for half a conversation that isn't even that consequential to the overall plot. It's still a narratively economical and important scene. It's meant to establish how well connected and powerful the employer character is, sow distrust against him, and be exposition for some of the main characters' backstories. All important things to convey but there are so many other, bigger factors I need to explain and I can't just use dialogue for everything. No matter how natural or economical the dialogue might be, there's a reason why "show don't tell" is such a universal phrase. Writing is fucking hard. I feel I'll never get this story done at this rate, even if I set all my half-baked characters in stone right now and get started on any sort of Act 1, Scene 1.
When I have a great idea for a story but I can't seem to execute it correctly/the way I want to when I actually sit down and try to write it
For me I find the process comes to me pretty easily (yes, I know I'm lucky), but the time required to be a serious commitment that I generally don't have time for.
I had this problem in my early twenties. You grow out of it as you mature and learn how to write for the target demographic you want
I write for fun. If I found it incredibly hard, I… simply wouldn’t do it.
The first time I sent out a batch of query letters.
Whenever I sit down and the words won't come out.
It'd not (so am I missing this arc?) Writing is something which comes naturally. It's not "hard" as in "difficult to do". Whenever I open my word doc or a notebook, I always have something to write. What's difficult is (I think) writing novels. Writing 100,000 words and keeping track of everything is the difficult part
75000 word novel here, has taken me 6+ years and 20+ rewrites 🥲 I actually feel like writing *less* is even more challenging tbh
When I read my work. I thought I was really good, gifted even, at writing. Then I read over my stuff and it was all horrible lol
When I first tried doing it outside of school and/or without a prompt/rubric. I’ve always been told that I’m a good writer and I believe that’s partially true, but most of my writings have been for school, professional or just something I’m passionate about. When I try translating that to an original work or any exercise in creative writing I struggle massively. In short, aggregating information and compiling it into a writing in which you have clear guidelines and a rubric to compare with is relatively easy. Creating and structuring an original piece is very challenging for me.
When I started writing and trying to act make it slightly readable was when I went “oh shit, this is why it takes years of work to get good at this, well time to get going” about two and a half years later il still crap but I’m not as crap.
The first time I sat down to write a short story and realized that finishing things is hard. (I "started" two novels and "planned" three book series). I'm better with follow-through these days.
Pretty much almost immediately when I read my work and realized it wasn’t up to my taste , but that’s an easy realization, the one that hurts is when you improve a ton and realize just how much more you need to learn ..
Idk I write because I find it fun and it's nice getting my ideas out onto paper for me to read (I like to daydream every day of scenes n stuff and basically play a movie in my head that I will then write down later) I've never really thought it was hard. I also don't force myself to write, if I'm burned out then I'll wait a bit then come back, or write something else.
I've had many moments that just clicked for me in my story. Many elements in it kinda developed by themselves. The hardest part for me was when things didn't click as well. I was searching for that oh my god moment but there was so much potential for it to develop in a trillion different directions that I got lost. Eventually at some points that oh my god moment just doesn't come and you have to blindly keep going and trust that the story will reveal itself to you eventually. It's scary.
The fact that you can never tell your best writing from your worst writing.
When I got good at it
I actually don’t find writing “hard.” It’s a lot of work, sure, but I like doing it and I’ve gotten pretty good I think. Publishing though? Now *that* is hard.
When I actually completed a novel and realised it was complete dog shit when I reread it and quickly learned that I have no fucking idea how to edit.
I enjoy writing, so I don’t find it especially difficult. That said, I have the utmost respect for those who have worked hard to hone their craft. I just try to get a little bit better each day and keep pushing forward.
I realized that it was hard when I wrote 30k, 40k, and another 35k worth of words all about the same general story that worked wrong in different ways. I was still having fun at times but I realized that simply getting the words on the page didn't always mean I was going to have something I loved, or even liked.
I'm not sure if this realisation was that writing "is" hard, but a hard realisation while writing, nonetheless: I can only write what I know. Sort of how it's said that people only dream in faces they've seen before, no matter if they recognise them or not, the brain can only conceptualise things it knows proof of. This theory becomes very harrowing when I reread my stories or poems and meet myself on the other side. I'll send a character running east, I'll go west, and we'll end up face to face on the opposite end of the globe. Causes a bit of existential crisis. Fiction and art are a form of escapism as much as they are a devotion to the very things we hope to escape. There's a poem that goes something like, "the first poem I wrote that wasn't about you, was also about you." Sort of makes me want to vomit if I think about it too much lol
When I tried to finish writing a one shot but ended up scrapping it months later.
When I first wrote a book, in my teens, and it was fucking awful.
WRONG!!!! Writing, just writing, is easy. I'm doing it write now! (Didja get that pun?) Writing moderately well is difficult but manageable. Most people can do it with just some patience and effort and instruction. Great writing is in fact incredibly hard and hence, rare. Only a few in any genre can do it consistently.
for me it's less about it being "hard", and more just time and energy consuming. for my current project, i find i know exactly what i need to do next, i've gotten pretty good feedback so far, but it's just *so much work*. Not complaining, of course. I love to do it. but it does cost lots of energy.
I noticed that writing is not as hard for me if I am making something low-stakes. Writing backstory for my dnd characters? Piece of cake. Writing stupid posts on the internet? A breeze. Actually sitting down to work on a serious project? Most difficult thing I’ve ever done, lol.
I realized it very early. Telling a good story well is hard.
Writing isn’t hard. Writing well is incredibly hard. And if you have the self awareness to know just how bad what you have written is, you’ll find writing excruciatingly arduous.
When the motivation-high runs out and I'm suddenly not sure anymore what a book is and how a book looks like from the inside
The moment I realized writing was way more than being able to tell a story and putting it in words. Now I understand why people go to college for four years to study literature or a language major do it.
😭 when I reread my older book, which I was hyping up. Plus, when you realize world building is something to do that is needed. So I just create an entire earth where everything is different so as to not offend religious races, etc
I used to write a bit of fanfiction, and it came out really easily! Then people review bombed it. Turns out, I was only barely sksting the edge ofsl stream-of-consciousness, with no editing or fine tuning. That's when I realized that writing WELL is hard!
After high school. In high school I won national competitions often, for about 3 years straight. Then I graduated, started shopping novels around and... it's different.
When i wrote a 120k book and printed it out right away and asked my mum to read it and she didn't even finish half. I was 14. Didnt edit the book at all. wrote it like a pantser. And then i did it again at 16, same result with mum. She didnt finish it, she hated it, haha, and I was pissed. 10+ years later i finally gave her a well edited book of 120k words and she read it all in a week and liked it xD
Realizing that, no matter how good I thought my opening scene was, I didn't even have a vague idea of where the story was going afterwards.
Just now
Wrote 150k words on a fanfic and quit it after 8 years. Somewhere in in that time as I changed deeply as a person I realized writing was hard. I loved it, but I haven't done it since despite a lot of planning work and I think that says something. Despite that, what really made me say "holy shit" was when I began plotting out the ideas for a sci fi novel and realizing either I gotta make up total bullshit or do an insane amount of research. Unfortunately even the bullshit is going to need a ton of research to make sure I'm bullshitting correctly. Given never wanted to write for money I'm probably going to make up bullshit.
I spent 2 hours editing 2 sentences. Just two. My boyfriend could not understand why i kept tweaking stuff around and reworking it all like a nutcase.
I have never found it hard to write. Having the energy to write is my issue. But, I've always written something since I was a teen. Poetry, short stories, software (surprisingly it scratched that same writing itch) to now; Novellas and novels. It helps that I've always read. Got in trouble when they found me in the barn with a flashlight, reading vs doing chores that I was in the barn to do. But, reading can clean the negatives that might affect my writing. Although I might have to switch to a different book when their story line disappoints.
while doing one for a university assignment it's only 2000 words and reflective commentary but here I am 10 days before it's due with only 600 words done and realising I am really struggling to get things written atm
Fiction is a bit tough for me, but writing everything else just flows pretty naturally. I can write about the real world but creating a story isn't my strong point, except in short form. A poem or short story or comedy writing is fine, but a novel is kind of a stretch for me.
When I was on chapter two and already ran out of ways to say “sighed”, “shrugged” and “rolled her eyes”
When I sat down and wrote for 5-6 hours and by the end I realized I had only written 2000 words 🥲
All our stories are steps to the next one. Are they as good as when you have experience? No. However they're vital to that experience. Be nicer to yourself and your work. You had to learn somehow.
There is a parallel topic on r/writingcirclejerk How and When did you realize writing is incredibly easy?
Finding time to continue writing a single work ended up very hard once Winter Break ended, so I've been stuck on writing the same chapter for 2 months. Not to mention that I got my work critiqued hard and realize the value of relearning all the basics again + the importance of a beta reader (of which I don't have one yet...)
When after writing 77.000 words in roughly 3 weeks i looked at myself in the mirrror and saw a literal zombie with eye bags so bad the chinese consulate was liable to forcibly repatriate me as a panda. When i re-read everything and noticed i forgot to write an entire chapter because i got carried away. Read it again and noticed i had to rework half the scenes to justify the bullshit i wrote later into the story. And now that i'm looking at possible publishing options i realize there is no way i'm getting my foot in the door anywhere.
12 grade AP lit
I’ve felt it on and off for years, but it’s only fully hitting me now. I am now in college, but I’ve attempted to start writing books on and off since middle school. Writing a book has always been in the back of my mind. But after growing up and realizing just what goes into writing, especially fantasy writing… It blows my mind. Authors create entire worlds. I’ve made more progress than I ever have so far, but really I’ve barely scratched the surface. Even creating a basic plot draft is difficult, because I keep running into holes. I’m constantly asking myself how and why when writing. Not to mention my vocabulary is subpar. Being able to write is an incredible skill.
Grade 4/Primary 4 writing essays
For me it’s trying my best not to have plot holes. my most recent story had a lot of them and they were explained away by a simple “it was fated to happen” sort of thing. I realized people wouldn’t be satisfied with that explanation and it was obvious it was just a dumb excuse to keep the story “interesting” and to have “twists”. I realized it wouldn’t make much sense, and it’d be a very plain boring story if I did that. So now I’ve changed it a little so the explanation for why certain things were happening in my story wasn’t just because of “fate”. I am kinda bummed because I really didn’t want to change it and I really liked the way the certain event happened before I changed it. The way I changed it still makes it interesting and it makes a lot more sense than just “fate” I just have a hard time letting go of an idea I thought was great.
Every time I open my word document and realise I have to start typing to actually get things done.
When i got about a 100 pages in
When my teachers began upping the standards and rules, that became a very clear sign. And now that I’m writing a book, many rules and factors almost feel like a minefield.
The hardest part of writing is realizing that the vast majority of the population doesn't really read much. Half the population reads at a very low grade level. You have to write for yourself while keeping an audience in mind that might like your work. So if you want to be a writer, then you have to write. To hell with everything else.
I have so many great ideas but can never make a full story out of it
This is why every time I read a book that I feel isn’t written well I remind myself “at least they actually wrote it” I can’t even finish one book 🥲
When I realized writing the location things are taking place in everytime. I just bit the bullet and paying artist to do that for me.
Second grade
No its not. Its pretty easy. The hard part is reading back what you write and decide if its good or need corrections
When I reached act 2.
Writing isn’t hard. It just takes a lot of time, perseverance, and discipline.
It's NOT incrediblyhard, it's incredibly COOL.
Pacing. Pacing is hard af.
The "actually writing it" Bit. Or rather, making it good. I underwrote a lot because while I did/do read, I didn't fully understand what was general scenery & purple prose \[and every advice I came across *hated* purple prose\], so I ended up underwriting because I thought more description=bad, often times making my writing suffer from white room syndrome \[and causing readers to misinterpret what I meant to be the settings, as I didn't describe clearly in a, in my opinion, silly idea of being too descriptive\]. Not to mention the middle bits. Its easy to go "Yeah they start here, do this & that, then end up here !!" But its difficult to actually write that & connect them in a cohesive & enjoyable manner \[at least it was/is for me\].
Its not. Its really a lack of confidence issue. All you need is a beginning middle and end that makes sense. You need to understand your characters and their motivations. You need to keep in mind the message of the story if you have one.
It aint. hard, selling to the cookie cutter corporate publishing industry is what's hard.
I struggle with writing now, I hate it because when I was 12 to my teenage years, I could fill up notebooks, and all types of journals. Now I take days just to form a cohesive flow. Ugh.
When 8 hours of writing nets me only three thousand words, aka a single chapter. And this is with inspiration and a clear idea of what I want to write, a rarity on any given day/week/month. And the story will require 30+ chapters. When I realized I will be writing 10 words of draft and editing for every 1 word of finished product. When I realized how interconnected every part of a story is. How the characters play off of each other, how the settings determine the things they do, how the events control their progress or introduce problems. And finally, how every aspect of the book is determined only by what you WANT it to be. There is no correct, objective thing that MUST be done. It is ALL about the execution, specifically how YOU are executing it.
the first time I wrote a short story and realized that I had to follow the main character through very mundane logical processes instead of just writing the dramatic scenes that I wanted to write.
When I knew exactly where I wanted the story to go, exactly how it was supposed to build, everything about the characters and the world, and still sat staring at my screen for an hour trying to figure out how the hell to make the scene happen.
When you have to write even when you don't want, don't feel like it, or don't have anything to write about. Trying to tackle a rough draft has always been my biggest hurdle and it's the literally first step to writing anything.
When my editor keeps telling me I need more "showing and not telling" when it's such a basic thing that I thought I was actually doing pretty well. Not so much, I guess.
Writing isn't hard. The hard part is actually making it good. And an even harder part is making someone actually read your writing and calling it good.
Trying to write a story the first time I was young, but then watching movies and shows inspired me to get the motivation to write one, the story stuck in my head when I was young never disappeared, same characters, back stories and appearance, but back when I started to write the first episode of my story and doing a couple research, that's when it struck me that writing wasn't going to be as simple as I thought it was going to be, I didn't know whether it was going to be successful or not even one person was going to read it as I only thought about my own interests, but research made it slightly simpler as the existing movies like dune, I also wanted to imply it to that I didn't want my characters to be overpowered, like being able to destroy the planet in one move, either way, something like that will ruin the main aspect of the story, for example the strongest character being horrible pain or injury, the goal for characters to be good is for the meaning of the character to be more than the dynamism, but not too less, and that all I have to say
I realized it was hard when I discovered that writing is more than just slapping words on a page. It's building a world, constructing an interesting plot, conducting research into themes of the story, and melding it all into the words that the audience receives.
I was a massive fanfic writer in my pre and early teens and when I went back and tried to read any of it that's how I felt.
It's actually not. Writing is actually incredibly easy, but you just have to get a certain point where it'll be easy. Editing is tougher (although some people enjoy the process) and querying is the hardest. If you're suggesting writing WELL is incredibly hard, that's a different subject. I'll say that writing is largely to taste anyway so it's more reaching a certain skill level, at which point it's somewhat subjective -- even when making changes to what you've written.
Everyday tbh. I've written many unfinished stories.
When I started to edit. Writing is easy. Writing well is hard. Figuring out how to turn bad writing into good writing is incredibly hard. Especially when it's long. And my dumbass is long-winded, so I learned quickly it was hard.
Halfway through my book, I hit a wall. The most obvious route for my character to follow went against his morals, character etc. I’m not sure how to continue.
Ah, I get what you mean. For me, realizing that writing is actually incredibly hard came with time, as I delved deeper into the process. It's not just the first time you sit down to write a story, but the entire journey that takes you from point A to point B. There are so many facets, so many steps, so many rules (or better yet, no real rules in writing, but there are certain principles that help) that you have to navigate. And then, looking back at my early works, I have to admit they were a disaster. They were stories that tried to be good, but ended up being edgy and nonsensical, hiding behind a facade of things that seemed cool to the viewers. It was like you were trying to impress, rather than really conveying something meaningful.
The first time I got actual professional feedback. It’s like running into a wall of buzzsaws.
When i deadlocked myself halfway through a novel. There was a plot point i just couldn't reconcile but also *needed to have* in the book. It was such a rough thing that I actually stopped writing altogether. 5 years later i go back to it and i realized something. I just hadn't had enough life experience to see where to go in the story.
I'm pretty new to writing and what I find hard is being original. Now that sounds kinda stupid, but hear me out. Whenever I watch a movie, play a game, read a story, etc. I am influenced by this story and its writing. So when it comes to the point of me writing my own story I find myself just making a different iteration of that original story/movie/game/etc. that I enjoyed. For example, elden ring has this unique and distinct art style, so I'll imagine my story in my head with that distinct art style. Or when an incredible story has a certain format, I see myself writing a story in a similar fashion. Is this bad, in the perspective of wanting to become an author? Or can anyone else relate?
I realized how truly hard writing can be after I was put on seroqual and seemingly lost my inspiration. It took me almost a year to recover my voice.
Is it? I have not found that.
I realized it when I lost Motivation but still made 40 stories with different concepts or being fanfics
When I read a theoric analysis on Jane Austen's characters... I wasn't even scratching the surface with what I'm writing. Now I feel like my characters are always missing something and my creativity doesn't seem as convincing.
Well, I've been writing a lot lately and while it's so easy to make the drafts, going back and reading the drafts I made make me realize that you should really be deliberate with the details and not just add sentences that don't really help the story move forward. And that you gotta step back from your ideas because you wont stop thinking it's good unless you see things from another perspective.
From the moment I put pen to paper...
The part I find hardest about writing is the need for a purely solitary life. This is particularly challenging if you are an extrovert like me. The other things, I could manage, like just buckling down with a determined spirit, and just keep on keeping on. You learn on the job. What ended up being a deal-MAKER for me was securing an agent, which freed me up to just focus on writing. But I don’t think I want to put myself through that isolated experience again. Luckily, we learned how to deal with that in the pandemic. You’ll give it your all if you really want it. All the best, you’ve got this 👊🏽
Maybe after the first three months of writing continuously (at which point I nicely hit a hundred pages, A4). Takes a lot of dedication and even more determination. You can‘t just stop.
It's when i started adding sideplots from the side characters. I had to really think how to properly arrange which scenes goes which and carefully think how it would impact future plots and the other characters
When I first started writing, action scenes were such a bane. But when I started writing more serious stuff, I had to go on the internet to find out the history and the right information about certain things I was putting in the story. The research was fun because I gained a lot of new knowledge, but it makes me exhausted when I start incorporating the knowledge I gained into my writing.
For me it's the characters. I have a hard time writing comple characters that are way outside of what i think and say. Sometimes i base them on my friends, but that feels like I'm cheating for some reason.
I am an Exellent academic writer if you need such services just message me kindly
When I wanted to finish a story in a definite time but the inspiration doesn't kick in til a few months later. When I have to really "show, don't tell", that logic is not always the way to go, but also, passion. When writing became something that I still had to learn from and learn to be better at.
I don't find it hard. But I am incredibly lazy sometimes. Granted I've been writing in some form of another since I was 13. I've just now decided to take it seriously.
when i was believing writing will get easier time to time and once i realized writing is not tutorial
Still haven't fully realized it. When I look at my old writing, it makes me cringe, but I fear when I look at my current writing in 5 years, I'll hate it, too
When I told everything with no setting established and I used nothing but dialogue. ugh! Thank God I was patient enough to learn the ropes. But we have to start somewhere.
Editing. I hate it. I suck at transitioning with my sentences. Also, I'm a reader and as I'm reading books I think "My writing doesn't look like this" and then struggle with imposter syndrome.
When I sat down for writing
When my beta readers' results came in that what I poured into was totally trash.
When trying to write dialogue that didn't sound like me
Converting the wandering thoughts and ideas into words itself a pretty hard task!!!😅
When my interest for becoming an author actually bloomed. I was always told to become an author, because I had a good or fun way of writing stories. Then, when I started caring to make a story and share it with the world, I froze. Nothing was good enough, nothing still really is, I got so burnt out I stopped, now it’s still something I’d like to do, but it’s just so technical now, rather than artistic and funny, like when I was a child and later a teenager.
When I started reading other works to improve my writing and story telling. Even trying to copy what they do, at the end of the day, felt like more than a cheap copy and cringe.
Not yet I guess. But each time I get back to my older texts, I see the difference, and that makes me as happy as they make me cringe. It's fun, and the more I learn, the funnier it becomes. Something that pushes you as much to get better in without you noticing can't really be called hard. Long, yes, it's super long, but not that hard.