The process is very familiar. You pick up a pen and stare at a blank sheet of paper until sweat comes out of your brows and when there is no more sweat, tears come and when the tears dry up, the blood arrives, then you pick up the paper, crush it in exasperation and hurl it across the room and swear never to write again. A couple of hours later, you’re staring at a fresh blank sheet of paper again. That’s quite a melodramatic picture I’ve painted but it touches on the plight of many a writer. It seriously begs the question, why would any sane person choose to do it?
I’ve asked myself that question many times. It is a solitary hobby that racks your brains and taxes your imagination like nothing ever has, and this is just on the first draft. The rewrites can be quite painful and I think Nathaniel Hawthorne summed it up well when he said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
A few years ago, I’d had enough of the blood, sweat and tears just for a page of good writing. I remember thinking to myself, “I have got to have a talent for something else because if I was any good at this, it shouldn’t be so hard.” I catapulted into a quest. I took a personality test to discover who I already knew I was - total waste of time that turned out to be. Subsequently, I stumbled across a website where you apparently put in your personality traits through several thousand questions and you’d end up with a list of the top 5 professions suitable for you. Eureka!
I gleefully launched into the test. When I was done, I received a message informing me my top 5 professions would be in my inbox within the hour. After an hour of twiddling my thumbs and stomping aimlessly around my apartment, the email came. With shaky hands, I clicked it and …. my jaw fell flat. Would you believe the no 1 profession on the list was Writer?
I logged out of the stupid inbox and went back to my blank sheet of paper. Do you know why you write?
Why Do Writers Write?
