In a post for Lit Hub, Jessie Greengrass (The High House) says what many writers refuse to acknowledge and others constantly whine about: writing is work.
“To frame it in this way is to acknowledge that good writing doesn’t come out, fully formed, at two in the morning; and nor does it require anything extraordinary in the way of genius or education,” she writes. “Instead, good writing happens, in increments, between everything else that needs to be done.” As such, writing requires what any skill needs: learning, practice, repetition.
“To believe that writing is work is, above all, to believe that with effort one might get better at it,” Houser says. “I want to believe that each book builds on the last. That new skills are learned. That, with practice, I am getting better at what I do. Otherwise, what would be the point, at all?”
