"Hustle. When you’re pitching and making and selling stories or books, you are the same as pretty much every other writer, famous or not. The work is different by degree, not by nature."
Yes, to all of this. And yes, to reminding ourselves that the work is the thing. Not how much or how little we have to do to get it done. When we begin to resent the work itself, that only leads to a perennial self-loathing that serves no purpose.
Move beyond the resentment and embrace the work itself in whatever form it takes.
Listening to Susan Orlean's "The Library Book", which I know you liked. In it, she calls writing a book "an act of defiance", along the same lines as "Writing and Failure". The work is the thing, not its outcome.
A great post.
"Hustle. When you’re pitching and making and selling stories or books, you are the same as pretty much every other writer, famous or not. The work is different by degree, not by nature."
Yes, to all of this. And yes, to reminding ourselves that the work is the thing. Not how much or how little we have to do to get it done. When we begin to resent the work itself, that only leads to a perennial self-loathing that serves no purpose.
Move beyond the resentment and embrace the work itself in whatever form it takes.
Listening to Susan Orlean's "The Library Book", which I know you liked. In it, she calls writing a book "an act of defiance", along the same lines as "Writing and Failure". The work is the thing, not its outcome.