The Hardest Thing

The hardest thing about writing is starting.

Well, unless you count those days when nothing works.

Or those other days, when you think everything you write stinks and no-one will ever publish it anyway, so what’s the point?

Or the times when you have to edit instead of writing and you start losing any faith you previously had in your ability to form coherent sentences.

Or when your characters refuse to behave and your dialogue sounds as though it was written by a horse, albeit a rather intelligent horse, as far as horses go.

Or...

Look, I could go on but the point is that while these things are also quite difficult and annoying in their way, the absolute hardest thing about writing is starting.  Ironically, it’s also the easiest thing.  You know, this business of writing really is a confusing business at times.

If you look at it one way, it’s almost ridiculously easy to sit in front of a blank screen and start typing a couple of words.  Nothing easier, yes?  You put your fingers on the keys and write “Jeannie was quite precocious for her age and liked to annoy people by playing the violin really well without ever seeming to practise”.  That was easy.  I mean, the second draft of Black Fiddle is never going to start that way, but how easy was it just to pop those words on the screen?

On the other hand, sometimes it’s a lot easier to make a cup of tea, then another cup of tea, because some bastard drank yours when you weren’t looking.  And while you’re at it, why not cook some scones, scrub the stove clean, wash the linen and re-lay the carpets in the bedrooms?  Because, all of a sudden, that seems a great deal easier than sitting down and putting a couple of fingers to work on the keyboard.

It’s not the act of typing that’s so difficult – it’s the overwhelming mountain of pressure and expectation and self-doubt that sits in front of the keyboard.  Sometimes, it’s really difficult to surmount it.  Other times, it’s easy to remember you can just sort of skirt around it and try to pretend it’s not there.

This is my problem at the moment, though.  I have at least three stories and two second drafts wanting to be done, but I just can’t work my way around that mountain.  I can’t remind myself that I can just duck in there and the keyboard will be immediately accessible.

Or it could be that I spend far too much time analysing these things instead of writing fiction.  That could certainly be a major factor.

Or it could be that I’m lazy.  ‘Could be’... what am I saying?  I am lazy.  I’m quite possibly the laziest writer there is.  If there was a competition for lazy writers, I can assure you, I wouldn’t be there.  I’d be here at home, lounging about reading or wandering aimlessly about the internet – that’s how lazy I am.

I think this is point where I sigh, look forlorn and then decide to stop being such a git.  At least, I really hope it is.