Category: Productivity

Famous Writers Who Hate Writing

by Bill Cotter

Sometimes I hate writing. That’s not to say I hate the writing of others, though I occasionally do, and that’s not to say I hate my own writing, though I often do, but rather that I sometimes hate the commission of the act of writing. I hate it when I have nothing to say, which is most of the time, or when I think I have stuff to say but the words are clogged at the nib, or when the ink flows freely but lands on the page in impotent smears, or when the words ring like bells but the sentences flop like flagstones in the mud, or when the paragraphs flare but the chapters fizzle.

i-hate-that-poem-300x300I also hate writing when I have better things to do. Doze, eat cheese and crackers, solve easy Sudoku puzzles, shop for books on the Internet, doze some more. I’ve concluded that even some unpleasant chores are less hateable than writing. Cat box cleaning, evacuating the hard drive of viruses, defeating drain clogs. Sometimes I feel like I would trade a writing obligation for a trip to the emergency room for stitches. More than once I’ve promised the gods in their pantheon a year of my life if they would get me out of a writing commitment.

I am not alone in my dark feelings, of course. Most writers, if not all, whether professional, recreational, or scholastic, hate writing at one point, or, in some cases, every point, in their careers, and their attestations to this can entertain, nonplus, horrify, and occasionally provide comfort to the writing-hating writer. For fun, I’ve provided below a small selection of quotations by well-known writers at odds with their business, which I hope the reader will find profitable, instructive, and cautionary. read article

Peggy Bechko: 6 Things that Could be Keeping You from Writing Success

holding-backby Peggy Bechko

So, what holds you back? What keeps you from writing what you want to write, from getting it out there and being published? Recognizing what might be holding us back as writers could well be key in helping us to move forward.

You want to create worlds, right? Whole new places in space, time, and experience for readers to go. And readers, that’s the experience you’re in it for, right? Those new places, those new adventures.

Worthy goals to be sure. read article

Good books are hard to write. Bad books are a breeze.

And now, an eternal verity. We recommend that you put this on a post-it note right in the corner of your monitor. You’ll see why:

Dear Writers, Don’t Forget This:
by Jon Acuff

If you’re a writer, there’s something simple you need to remember:

snoopy-good-writing-is-hard-workGood books are hard to write. Bad books are a breeze. read article

munchman’s choice: 10 Reasons You Might Want to Make Some Fucking Art

Okay, I admit it. I’m running this one cuz of the title. Truth to be told, I, young baron von muncher, am secretly a major fucking lover of fucking art. So this choosing this story is definitely a no-brainer:

fuckingartbabyby Jordan Bates

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.” ? Friedrich Nietzsche

I love making things. I always have. I remember as a youngster spending hours drawing pictures of Spider-Man and Dragonball Z characters. As a kid I also played piano (a skill I hope to reclaim) and more recently, I dabble in acoustic guitar. In college I started and continue to write fiction and poetry. A year and a half ago I began creating this blog. As of a few months ago I also make weird rap songs about philosophers, 90s cartoons, and chupacabras. read article

The Secret to Artistic Success is…Luck

As our old G-paw used to say, “If you’re lucky you don’t have to be smart.” But what he didn’t know is that even if you’re lucky you still need to be talented. (Oh, the humanity of it all!)

iStock_000014701722XSmall_610_300_s_c1_center_centerby Mike LaBossiere

As a writer and someone who teaches an Aesthetics course, the cause of artistic success is a matter that I find rather interesting. When I was an undergraduate I was involved in a faculty-student debate about artificial intelligence. In the course of the debate, I defended free will. The professor on the other side made an interesting point in claiming that I believed in free will because I wanted credit for my success. That remark stuck with me and I found it applied elsewhere, such as matters of luck (that is, chance that turns out favorable or unfavorable).

Since I have been a gamer for quite some time, I am well aware of the role (or roll) of chance in success. However, as the professor noted, I wanted credit for my successes and hence while I acknowledged the role of luck, I tended to minimalize its role. However, after having some modest success with my books and teaching Aesthetics for years, I came to accept the view that luck (that is, favorable chance) has a large role in success. Of course, this was a largely unsupported view. Fortunately, Princeton’s Matthew Salganik decided to investigate the matter of success and had the resources to do so. read article