Writing: When Things Get Tough

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: No job is perfect, and being a writer has its bad days. Dario Ciriello discusses the darker times writers face, and why we still keep writing.

Sometimes writing is so difficult that all you can do is laugh. The laugh is not one of humor, but more like that of Holmes as he goes over the Reichenbach falls, or perhaps one of Lovecraft’s characters as he fully realizes the depth of the unspeakable cosmic horror which is about to devour his soul.

Every seasoned writer is, I think, deeply mistrustful of anyone who claims to love the process—I mean the entire process, especially the in-the-trenches bayonet-work, when you’re locked in a life-and-death struggle with yourself and every fiber of your being screams give up, surrender, you can’t win, because each sentence you craft, each line of dialogue, is worthless, stilted nonsense. At these times there’s nothing to love about the process, and to hell with inspirational quotes and touchy-feely nonsense. All you have is will and determination, and it had better be up to the task.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com