Hard Work

"Hard work is the yeast that raises the dough."

I saw this quote and thought, "That sums things up perfectly." You see, I've been working with a close friend who started writing just over a year ago, and yesterday she told me she was done. Maybe she'd try again later, but she she'd given herself a year to write a book, and that year was over and she hasn't met her goal so she was done.

To my way of thinking she had met her goal. She has written a book. A 60k novel. In fact, she's also re-written a couple of times, and written several short stories as well. While none of them were quite publishable, I saw promise in what she'd shown me. And, she'd told me she really enjoyed writing.

Last night I went see the latest Underworld with one of my neighbours. We're both movie nuts so this is something we do often, and we always end up talking about other things as well. She's a writer of sorts for her day job (writing website content and promotional materials and stuff like that) and she asked about how I got into writing erotica. Was it something I'd always wanted to do, was it always erotica that I wanted to write or did I have a yen for other genres…that sort of thing. As I told her the story of how I got into it, I was thinking about how easy it felt when I first started writing. I just sat down, determined I was going to achieve this career, and I wrote.

I never thought about how hard it was or how easy it was. I never thought about did I have enough description or were my characters developed enough. These things didn't really enter into my mind, most likely because I never really took classes or anything that focussed these things.

Now when I sit down to write all these fill up my head to the point that a blank screen can freeze me up for a day, or more, if I'm not careful. I worry about if it will sell, if it's been done before, is it what readers expect from Sasha White? Things like that….and writing has become hard.

While I've never been a flowery "Oh I just love writing and would do it even if I was never published" type of person, I now think back to when I looked forward to sitting down to write.

For some people education and knowledge helps build their confidence, and for others, it can crumple it. Education and knowledge has made writing more difficult for me…and it seems maybe for my friend as well. But in my mind, I think the thing that makes it most difficult for her is that at her core, she doesn't believe in herself…and I really wish I could show her that she's so much better and has so much more promise than she could image, but I have no idea how to do that.

This, more than anything has made it clear to me that you have to be strong to be a writer. Talent is good, but it's just not enough to make it.