For those of us who make our living—or hope someday to make a fraction of our rent payment—at the keyboard, writing is a slog, a muddy trek through the mire, the sedentary equivalent of Frodo trudging to Mount Doom. Except, of course, for that small subset of authors for whom it is a walk on the beach, a stroll along a country lane, Legolas skating along a castle stairway, smiting orcs with a sly smile.
I hate those guys.
You should, too, if only for the fact that they drive your favorite author insane. “Why can’t I write like that? What’s wrong with me? Three books a year just requires more discipline!”
Naturally, that line of thinking is totally off-putting, completely distracting, and utterly wrong. You might as well wonder why, if you play three-on-three at the gym every week, you’re not LeBron James.
It doesn’t keep us all from thinking it.
I first encountered this sort of writer at a mountain retreat several years ago. It was my first workshop with real, published authors. We even had a Hugo winner. Color me star-struck. But one guy, who as it turned out (unsurprisingly) had dozens of stories and zillions of articles published, could literally come up with an idea at breakfast and write a 3000-word tale by lunch. Never mind how you conceive a full-blown story that quickly, how the hell do you type that fast? I mean, let’s see…divide by four, carry the one…okay, so it’s not that fast. But it still doesn’t explain the speed of writing, which is an entirely different thing.
Naturally, I hate that guy. Haven’t seen him in years, haven’t talked to him, really nice guy, doesn’t matter. I loathe him.
Because it’s easy. If people like that are going to have it so easy themselves, then it should be equally easy to hate them. It’s only fair.
So you go on a nice rant, vent your spleen for a while, blow off some steam. You know what? You still haven’t written anything, and he’s probably got a new story out. That’s when you realize, too late, that you should have poured all that venom and outrage into your story. Then you’d have finished one too. Then maybe people could hate you for a change.
See? Easy.
Graffiti on the Walls of Time 