Meg Dowell Writes

Okay. Admit it.

Even if this isn’t you all the time, you’ve had these moments. We all have.

Sometimes, you really enjoy being a writer.

But you do not enjoy actually … you know. Writing.

Writing looks cool from the outside, when you have something pretty to show off.

Except that pretty thing doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone has to create it.

Oh, right. That “someone” is you.

This stuff is hard. “I don’t want to” is a very convincing argument for just walking away without finishing something.

We love the product. We don’t always love the production.

We fall in love with the idea of holding a newly printed copy of our books in our hands … until we realize we actually have to sit down and write a book.

We adore the idea of having a blog thousands of people read … until we realize how much work goes into keeping up a blog year after year.

The thought of being able to say we write for a living gives us chills. Until we’re slumped over our laptops at one in the morning crying because we hate everything we just spent all day writing.

People generally like the idea of the writing life, but want very little to do with the actual habit of writing.

That’s just one of many things that separates the dreamers from the achievers.

There are days I struggle to get out of bed in the morning because I know that in a few hours, I’m going to have to start writing. And I don’t want to do that.

But the thing about dreaming is, you have the power to transform your ambitions into reality.

I get out of bed and mentally prepare myself to write because that feeling of being finished, at the literal end of the day, is worth the effort to me.

There are always going to be days you struggle. Sometimes I have to say out loud, to myself, while staring at a blank page on my computer screen, “I really don’t want to do this. But I’m going to feel so much better once I do it.”

The process is hard. The product takes work.

But if you keep your eye on that endpoint, at least you have something to get you through those really tough days.

And don’t ever feel bad for having a hard time. It doesn’t mean you’re not meant to be a writer or that you’re failing. It means you’re human. But humans can train themselves to push themselves farther than their perceived limits (within reason — don’t hurt yourself).

You CAN do this.

One word at a time.

That’s how I got through writing this blog post.

One word at a time, until I reached the last one.

---

Meg is the creator of Novelty Revisions, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words. She is a staff writer with The Cheat Sheet, a freelance editor and writer, and a nine-time NaNoWriMo winner. Follow Meg on Twitter for tweets about writing, food and nerdy things.

---

Help Novelty Revisions become a more valuable resource for aspiring writers.

Join now.