I’ve heard some people say that writing is easy. I laugh in their face. Why do I do such a mean thing? Here’s an example:

1-1/2 years ago, I wrote a book. I set it aside after I was finished to work on other things. Now I’m back to that book. I haven’t touched it since I set it down, so needless to say, it needs a good scrubbing edit-wise from me. First thing I realized was the first chapter was slow and boring. There was nothing that really grabbed me as the reader that would invest me in the story enough to keep reading. So, I fiddled a little and came up with something new.

The next day, I re-read it and thought it was utter shite.

So, a few days ago, on a very long plane ride, I decided that it needed a new beginning. Wrote that and yet again, a day or so later, hated it.

To shorten the story, I went through that five times. FIVE. Five times of loving/hating.

Yesterday I hand wrote out another stab at the chapter, and reading it again this morning, I still like it. So, it will probably be the new beginning for the book.

So, what the hell is so easy about that? Why would I willingly put myself through that sort of aggravation. I know of no one that would put themselves through something like that if they didn’t absolutely love what they did. You have to, in order to do that to yourself. To put yourself through that frustration on a routine basis. Especially when I know, that even after all of that, it’s still not “perfect” and will have to be edited up the ass in order to get it into an even better flow/format/etc.

Even then, it’ll still need to be edited.

Yeah – writing is easy. *snort*

Let’s look at something easy on the eyes instead, shall we? We need some man flesh around here because it’s been sorely lacking.