“All good writing is like swimming underwater and holding your breath.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald What is writing like to you?
21 thoughts on “Reader Friday: What is Writing Like to You?”
It’s like pulling or driving nails~ sometimes smooth and easy, other times bent and board splitiingly ugly.
It’s like pissing in poison ivy. You try to avoid it but, when your bladder insists it’s necessary, is such a relief to let it out.
I love the poison ivy analogy. 🙂
It’s like sailing away on a magic carpet, except I have to peddle like crazy to keep from crashing.
I hate to be unoriginal but, from E.L. Doctorow:
“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing.”
foolish me, I started to disagree with you.
Okay, a caveat: Today is not going well, writing-wise. So here is what it feels:
“All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing… and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?”
That’s Salieri in “Amadeus.” Today, he is my patron saint.
Tomorrow will be better. :))
Writing is like being dumped out of a helicopter onto a freeway and you have to find your way out…
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
It’s like entering a dark cavern through an opening barely large enough for my body. Once inside wet drips echo from far in the back, so I know it is deep. My footsteps reverberate off the walls, telling me it is wide. A cool smelling breeze hisses above of my head, this is a very tall space. I light a match and catch a glimpse of detailed cave paintings, colorful beasts and men, stars and trees, river…things.
A throaty rumble from far within and my match burns out. Something lives in here. I can no longer see the entrance. I must go through, deeper in, farther down. Escape is only possible through forward motion.
I hear whispered voices.
…it is not my Leprechaun friends….
I can’t remember who said this so I’ll paraphrase: Writing is like an archaeologist uncovering the skeleton of a dinosaur, sweeping away the dirt from one bone at a time.
Writing is a breath of fresh air after I have nearly drowned in the mundane, obligatory, mind-numbing duties of my other life.
To write is to breathe. To do otherwise is death to the creative spirit.
Writers are like sculptors, with this difference: writers first have to make their own marble.
Barry, you stole my thunder! I was going to say something about writers as sculptors, and then I got stuck. You’re so right that we have to make our own marble, because if the marble is flawed, no amount of diamond cutting (as I say in my post on this thread) will make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (How’s that for a mixed metaphor? Pretty good, eh?)
Writing for me is like coming up for air at last. Filling my lungs and knowing I’ll live a while longer after all.
For me, writing the first draft is magic, like entering a new world that feels oddly familiar, and yet the unexpected happens all the time, even though I’m a plotter not a pantser. Okay, so it’s not magical all the time, but it’s magical often enough to keep me writing.
Revising and editing feels as though I’m a diamond cutter, trying to create all the necessary facets and as many extra ones as possible so that the scene sparkles.
Line-editing and proofreading feel like homework, but not the homework you dread doing, although I know many writers hate those stages of the process.
Writing is a push into and from the heart.
First drafts are like putting together all the necessary ingredients to make clay. You kneed it and mix it and eventually you end up with a horrific gray lump. Editing is like putting that lump on a wheel and spin it, modeling it into something someone might want to buy. Publishing it is throwing into the fire and hoping it comes out okay.
*spinning
For me, writing is emptying my entire brain of words so I can finally think and rest, then life will feel at peace.
It’s like pulling or driving nails~ sometimes smooth and easy, other times bent and board splitiingly ugly.
It’s like pissing in poison ivy. You try to avoid it but, when your bladder insists it’s necessary, is such a relief to let it out.
I love the poison ivy analogy. 🙂
It’s like sailing away on a magic carpet, except I have to peddle like crazy to keep from crashing.
I hate to be unoriginal but, from E.L. Doctorow:
“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing.”
foolish me, I started to disagree with you.
Okay, a caveat: Today is not going well, writing-wise. So here is what it feels:
“All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing… and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?”
That’s Salieri in “Amadeus.” Today, he is my patron saint.
Tomorrow will be better. :))
Writing is like being dumped out of a helicopter onto a freeway and you have to find your way out…
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
It’s like entering a dark cavern through an opening barely large enough for my body. Once inside wet drips echo from far in the back, so I know it is deep. My footsteps reverberate off the walls, telling me it is wide. A cool smelling breeze hisses above of my head, this is a very tall space. I light a match and catch a glimpse of detailed cave paintings, colorful beasts and men, stars and trees, river…things.
A throaty rumble from far within and my match burns out. Something lives in here. I can no longer see the entrance. I must go through, deeper in, farther down. Escape is only possible through forward motion.
I hear whispered voices.
…it is not my Leprechaun friends….
I can’t remember who said this so I’ll paraphrase: Writing is like an archaeologist uncovering the skeleton of a dinosaur, sweeping away the dirt from one bone at a time.
Writing is a breath of fresh air after I have nearly drowned in the mundane, obligatory, mind-numbing duties of my other life.
To write is to breathe. To do otherwise is death to the creative spirit.
Writers are like sculptors, with this difference: writers first have to make their own marble.
Barry, you stole my thunder! I was going to say something about writers as sculptors, and then I got stuck. You’re so right that we have to make our own marble, because if the marble is flawed, no amount of diamond cutting (as I say in my post on this thread) will make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear (How’s that for a mixed metaphor? Pretty good, eh?)
Writing for me is like coming up for air at last. Filling my lungs and knowing I’ll live a while longer after all.
For me, writing the first draft is magic, like entering a new world that feels oddly familiar, and yet the unexpected happens all the time, even though I’m a plotter not a pantser. Okay, so it’s not magical all the time, but it’s magical often enough to keep me writing.
Revising and editing feels as though I’m a diamond cutter, trying to create all the necessary facets and as many extra ones as possible so that the scene sparkles.
Line-editing and proofreading feel like homework, but not the homework you dread doing, although I know many writers hate those stages of the process.
Writing is a push into and from the heart.
First drafts are like putting together all the necessary ingredients to make clay. You kneed it and mix it and eventually you end up with a horrific gray lump. Editing is like putting that lump on a wheel and spin it, modeling it into something someone might want to buy. Publishing it is throwing into the fire and hoping it comes out okay.
*spinning
For me, writing is emptying my entire brain of words so I can finally think and rest, then life will feel at peace.