My three daughters were once all in Girl Scouts. Ordinarily, my wife, who was their Girl Scout leader, together with one of her co-leaders, would drive them and the rest of their troop to their camping destinations. One weekend, however, all the co-leaders with vehicles were unable to go, while the one co-leader who could go, did not have a vehicle. Our mini-van could carry eight, but since there were ten girls in the troop, my wife couldn\u2019t do it alone. So I had to volunteer to drive some of them on that particular weekend.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, I did not have to actually spend that weekend camping with a bunch of Girl Scouts. I simply had to drive them to the camp on Friday, and then return to pick them up on Sunday.
\nThe camp site was only a half hour away, so it was not a horrible task. On the drive back on Sunday, following this particular camp out, one of the children asked me a question that sounds very simple: \u201cis writing a book hard?\u201d<\/p>\n
Initially I mumbled something incoherent. <\/p>\n
Then I asked her if she had ever had to write essays in school. After getting an affirmative answer, I inquired as to their length. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had to write a two page essay once.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d I said, \u201cthe book I just wrote is about three hundred typed pages.\u201d<\/p>\n
She squeaked like a mouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you don\u2019t write it all at once.\u201d I added quickly. \u201cYou do a little bit each day. For about a month. Or three.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not certain that made the child feel any better. I decided not to go into the rewriting process. She was now convinced that writing a book was the most awful thing she could possibly imagine. <\/p>\n
But I really don\u2019t think that writing a book is very hard or very horrible. I mean, how hard can it be? I was barely sixteen when I finished writing my first one. <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s really like any job, I suppose. <\/p>\n
If it\u2019s something you do, day in and day out, you don\u2019t think about it being so tough. You also don’t think about it being fun. That’s why it’s called work. You just get up in the morning and do it. Like teaching ancient Hebrew. Only people who don\u2019t do it think it\u2019s exotic. <\/p>\n
For instance, if your neighbor has never repaired a toilet, then she may imagine that toilet repair is hard. If you don\u2019t fly an airplane, then flying an airplane might seem akin to doing magic. Or repairing cars is an arcane science requiring sacrifices and incantations. Likewise the process of designing aircraft. Or teaching algebra. Or English. But if it\u2019s what you do, and you\u2019ve been doing it for a while, you don\u2019t really give it much thought any more\u2014no matter what it is. It\u2019s just your job: the thing you do instead of sleeping. And in some sense, every job is hard and hateful\u2014or easy and satisfying\u2014or some combination thereof, depending on how you\u2019re feeling about it late in the afternoon after not sleeping so well the night before.<\/p>\n
Even your dream job sooner or later, at one time or another, is simply a grind. You don’t wait for inspiration. It’s not romantic. It’s just a job and you just do it, regardless of how you feel.<\/p>\n
If you don’t see writing as just a job like that, you’d best not try to become a writer.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, sometimes writing is nothing at all like doing high school essays multiplied by infinity. Sometimes it really is the most wonderful thing ever and as easy as eating a chocolate cake and nearly as satisfying. All jobs are like that on occasion. That’s why we can endure them, I suppose.<\/p>\n
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