1. So many people talk about wanting to write that it seems both normal and easy to achieve.
2. Anyone — ANYONE — can publish a book, free of charge, right now.
3. We tell each other stories verbally all the time. Writing them down must be simple, right?
4. They’ve only seen mostly perfect, polished and published stories — never a rough draft.
5. Technically, everyone writes. They don’t think about how many years it takes to learn to write “well.”
6. Measuring writing progress/improvement is extremely difficult and, for many, not at all exciting.
7. They wrote a short story once and it was a breeze.
8. Their cousin’s friend’s sister’s aunt published a book on their first try!
9. Writing success stories always go right from “I’m going to write a book” to “I’m ready to publish a book!”
10. Technically, writing requires very few tools or investments. You basically just need your hands. Easy.
11. Ideas do often pop up out of nowhere, but it often seems like we go off and write an entire novel in a day after that and it’s no big deal.
12. Experienced writers don’t talk enough about “the struggle.”
13. Yet no one seems interested in hearing us talk about how hard it is when we do. Or they don’t listen.
14. It sometimes seems like everyone keeps writing the same three stories over and over. Which is kind of true. Kind of.
15. For some writers, this really does come naturally and maybe it’s not as deep of a struggle. But there’s more to writing than the actual writing … everyone has a roadblock. It’s just not always easily visible to outsiders.
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 10-time NaNoWriMo winner. Follow Meg on Twitter for tweets about writing, food and nerdy things.
Meg Dowell Writes 
Spot on!
Writing a book might not be that hard but writing a good one is difficult. It takes lots of effort and tenacity to do the writing, editing, re-editing, publishing and marketing. That is why not that many people actually do it.
Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
Check out this post from the Novelty Revisions Blog with 15 Reasons People Still Think Being a Writer Must Be Easy
Reblogged this on Stevie Turner and commented:
It’s not easy being a writer at all. Most of us need to find the time to write in-between working at our day jobs. Sometimes we can’t be bothered to write at all, but feel guilty that we should be churning out page after page of scintillating stories. I’m checking social media sites for only about an hour a day at the moment, as I’m having a rather nice time at my holiday home on the Isle of Wight. I’m letting it all slide this week …
Every time someone says something looks easy and probably is, I always remember what Huey Lewis said when they got his band got it’s first Grammy. he said something to the effect that, I want to thank all the people who supported us during all the years of playing in the bars, at the county fairs and colleges, and all the little backwater places we preformed before we became an overnight success.”
What was he saying, it might look like we got her overnight, but it was a lot of work getting here.