Writing is Easy

 Writing is easy.  Just open a vein.  The famous quote speaks of the passion and angst resident in writers.  The quote could just as easily address the business side of a writer's life.  In fact, the quote should read for the business side of writing "... open an artery" because the business side of the writing life can be hell.  Writers struggle, on the whole, with business.

Writers love the passion of their craft.  Even though we sometimes struggle to get to the button chair (butt-in-chair), once we get going we escape to a different plane of consciousness.  Especially when the muse is engaged, nothing penetrates our awareness if we've fortified our writing hide-out properly.  A writer will go until the creative fuel runs dry, then bask in the inner glow of creative bliss.

Yes, we may hate what we wrote tomorrow, but in the moment and the moments after, the satisfaction supplants everything else we experience.  Nothing worthwhile comes completely 'easy'.  Enjoyable.  Passionate.  But easy is not a true description of writing.  Writing can even come easy to some, but in the end there is a lot of work attached to excellent writing.

The dynamic of writing shares a commonality with other creative endeavors.  Painters, musicians and sculptors cross creative veins in their participation in their respective crafts.  Emotion flows through most writing and in order to produce tangible reader reactions, the writer must connect with inner voices of emotion and exorcise them to the page.  So too the painter, musician and sculptor.

We often refer to our creations as our 'babies', again relating to hard labor (pun intended!), blood and birth.  I've experienced the births of my children and I can safely say there is nothing easy about the process.  I've written five books (two published so far) and the same is true.  Just like my children, I thoroughly enjoy the products of my labor (as well as the creative effort!), but there is effort involved and pain.

In the end, those who think writing is truly easy most likely do not grasp the enormity of what it takes to produce a quality product.  Writing IS rewarding.  Even without monetary compensation, writing can give back to the author a euphoria that spawns the desire to create more.  When an author unlocks those key word combinations to form an idea or transfer an emotion to a reader, there is much reward solely in that.

This creative reward will push us forward even when the writing gets tough.  I, for one, am grateful that writing is indeed not easy.  If it were too easy, there would be no challenge.  Conquering the challenge delivers great reward.  Just open a vein ...