No.62 Delight in Writing p150
Everyday I write the book
As a fledgling writer, I feel equal delight and disappointment when I hear that other writers, great and small, do not find joy in the act of writing. I am someone who often needs to trick myself to the desk, or create some spurious accountability, or offer myself inducements. I do not leap out of bed at 5am with a story already falling out of the ends of my fingers.
So to read that Priestley, as an long-established writer, found not delight but perhaps only satisfaction in writing, makes me feel a bit better. Many other writers have similar issues:
Colm Tóibín claims he does not enjoy writing very much, and does it only for the money. 1
Franz Kafka despaired of writing: “Yesterday incapable of writing even one word. Today no better.” 2
Someone, who appears not actually to have been Dorothy Parker as I had thought, said ‘I hate to write, but I love to have written”. I wonder who it was, it’s a great quote, one I can get on board with (I don’t hate it, I think I fear it). 3
I find the act of writing akin to holding my breath for a little too long while trying to swim across a pool underwater, and knowing I won’t get there. Or how I imagine rowing the Atlantic or swimming the Channel must be: a huge sense of satisfaction at reaching dry land, but a hell of an ordeal to get there. My inner demons have a lot to do with this: “who do you think you are?” echoes around my skull constantly, along with its cousin “you’re doing it wrong’.
When others say writing is an absolute joy and pleasure they cannot get enough of, I feel dumbfounded by their revelations, pleased for them, and a terrible envy. I acknowledge that this mindset might be part of what is causing me so much angst, but the martinets who live in my head are not keen to move on and learn new tricks, old dogs that they are.
What I do find delight in though, is that writing happens at all. Whether we find it easy or difficult, many of us are compelled to write, and the world, bin fires notwithstanding, is a much better place for that. Huge thanks to all you writers out there, keep grinding away, keep astounding us with your thoughts, and keep that hand moving oh-so-steadily across the page.
Thank you for reading.
1 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/03/authors-on-writing
2 https://lithub.com/franz-kafka-the-ultimate-self-doubting-writer/
3 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/10/18/on-writing/
Question for you – Do you love it, or hate it, or fear it? Share if you’d like in the comments.
Summary of Priestley’s Original Delight in Writing — He feels that a young writer finds delight in discovering that they are able to write, in becoming writer, but after that he finds writing is at best satisfactory. After that he prefers to be polishing it up after it’s done.
For more about JB Priestley’s book Delight, from which I take these cues, please take a look here
