13 Comments
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Richard Donnelly's avatar

"I love writing." Then you're a writer Lev. Too many don't, and it can't be hidden. Tho they try : )

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Dennis Martin Brooks's avatar

Lev, SO true. Writing is not torment. (Trying to) get published is. I go back over my mss. And when I do, I feel at home with friends. When I'm writing, I feel alive.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

That's a great way of putting it, and especially for me, writing a mystery series has always been a vacation to my own all-inclusive resort. :-)

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Liz Gauffreau's avatar

Hmm, when I talk about the writing process with other people, I tend to wax ecstatic about how much I love it. My suffering comes when I DON'T write.

Nice parenthetical snark here: "It's popular for writers to complain about how agonizing writing is and how they dread writer's block as if it were one of the Ten Plagues (or a visiting Kardashian), but the general public just doesn't seem to buy that line."

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Lev Raphael's avatar

I can relate. I've been writing (and publishing) so much in the last few years that if I don't have a project. I can sometimes feel unmoored. It helps me to read books I either have enjoyed before or sample and know I will like. Living in someone else's world is very stimulating.

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Liz Gauffreau's avatar

I’m in the publishing and promoting phase for two books, so I resort to writing poetry to stay moored to the pier.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

I'm right now working on a new short story (my career started with those) and a couple of book reviews. It keeps me focused, and is relaxing at the same time.

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X. P. Callahan's avatar

". . . all the people over the years who've told me that they would write a book—if they only had 'some free time' ": I'm told some writers respond to such comments by saying they would take up brain surgery and do their own dental work in their free time, if only they had some.

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Lev Raphael's avatar

I have said things like that in response. :-)

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M.E. Proctor's avatar

That thing about the hat that wasn't there before? That's how I feel about my stories: hey, I made something out of nothing! True magic, right there. The torment is the waiting... for answers to submissions, for the publisher to deliver the proofs .... That's where you need heart and resilience. The writing is fun!

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Lev Raphael's avatar

I'm the same way with stories as with novels as with anything else unexpected.

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Meredith Phillips's avatar

I tend to agree with the late Duke of Edinburgh, who said writing is hard work, and compared it to flagellation. (He added that some people enjoy flagellation, however. I don't go along with that part ;-)

I also agree with whoever said, "Writing is awful, but having written is wonderful!"

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Lev Raphael's avatar

Of course, the Brits are reputed to like caning, spanking and such, so it may have been something of a positive for the duke. :-) And though he published books, it's difficult to believe that he wrote them without ghost writers.

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