Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.--Gene Fowler
While I work on a computer and my sheet of paper is a blank monitor screen, the struggle remains the same for all writers, including myself.
For the past year and a half, my writing day starts out with a now classic set of questions. Can I write one page today? Or maybe two, if I'm lucky? Can I even bring myself to sit down at the computer at all, knowing the struggle I face?
Inevitably, these always lead to the three more forbidding questions. Have I lost my love of writing completely? Should I quit? And worst of all: why do I bother?
Fortunately, I have the support of my fellow writers, and a will to succeed no matter what. While I might wilt like pansy when faced with a day of writing, and skip that day of writing completely at times, I adamantly refuse to surrender, writing a page here, a page there.
And while I might absolutely detest writing at that instant, I know full well that it's typical for any artist to experience bubbling bursts of joy and severe bouts of sorrow. I've even heard that this is what makes us as artists so creative. Perhaps the tales are true. One thing I do know is that in my instance they are. Therefore I attack the problem with that fact deeply entrenched within my mind.
So, like a child slogging through several feet of snow to climb that hill, a sled dragging behind her, I also know that the rewards are always near at hand. For me, the rewards often come in writing five pages instead of one, the thrill of losing myself in that downhill slide as it breathes life into my story again.
Those rewards do happen, if in spurts. But I've persevered at my own writing long enough to realize they will come. It's simply a matter of patience, although mine often gets worn pretty thin.
Even after working on four novel-length manuscripts, I'm not ready to give up yet. I like those rewards too much, the rush of joy when everything is going right, the excitement of knowing my critique partner and writing friends love what I'm creating just as much as I do, and the positive feedback I've been lucky enough to receive from numerous contests.
Above all, after eight years of seriously writing, I love that I'm so easily able to see the vast improvement in my own writing.
Sure it took extra effort, but like everything else, it wouldn't be as valuable to me if it hadn't.
So, with a stubborn streak that my family has been known to curse, I keep plugging away at the keyboard, knowing that tomorrow may be that day that one ray of inspiration creeps over the horizon once again.
Unfortunately, inspiration doesn't keep to a strict schedule. So in the meantime, I soothe myself with a quotation from Richard Bach, "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."
I'm proud to announce that today I didn't quit.
Karin Schroeder is a member of SARA. She is currently writing a time travel, Lakota Lullaby, which recently won the Outreach Award of Excellence and finaled in three other contests, including the Emily.
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