"I want to be a writer... but I hate writing"

[anghara]

On the newsgroup that I call home, the usual discussions turned up some interesting statements. People who if not stated outright then certainly implied that they were writers or wished to be writers are now on record that they enjoy the planning part of the game, and the editing part of the game, but they "choke on the middle

Comments

[wrathchylde]

Great post :)

Writing is definitely a labor of love.

[ex_rolanni]

Well, y'know...

I don't always love the writing part. The thing where every word you get down is like pulling (your own) tooth? Not fun. And the re-writing? Tedious beyond my power to express. I loathe everything not being perfect first time out of the box, especially if I've had a fair amount of the tooth-pulling going on before I actually achieve a draft. It seems so unfair that something that was that hard to do still isn't right at the end of the struggle.

However, I love the snap-click of "Yes, THAT'S right." I love hearing a voice that's not my own whispering in the back of my head. And I loveLoveLOVE the point when the character comes alive on the page and starts telling me stuff I didn't know about themselves and the situation they're facing

[aeriedraconia]

This is what it's like for me too, almost exactly. *reaches for the aluminum foil*

[anghara]

Yes, all that. [grin]

See teh bougainvillea comment.

And your demented friend apparently feels the same way my demented husband does because he told me pretty much teh self-same thing... but once again, here we go - it's the nasty bits in between that you endure because you love, in this case, the sensation of freefall. That is the object of this exercise, just as writing is the object of, well, writing, and the direct equivalent in my own discussion would be that someone loved writing but hated the research or the preparation (i.e. loved the freefall but hated the going up in a plane and jumping into the void). This, I can understand. Up to a point. But the basic implication of the dicussion I am referencing wasn't this - it was an apparent stated dislike of the freefall itself. It's like jumping out of a plane, which you hate, and then screaming "I hate this" all the way to the ground...