Here's an interview with Junot Diaz the pulitzer-prize winning author. The short interview reminds us one more time the difficult life of those who engage the written word.
Sometimes things just don't come together the way you want them to, and you find yourself tossing things out or rewriting until you realize it "ain't going to make a difference" and then you toss it out. I remember as a young boy rolling my eyes when i read that Hemingway wrote 30 drafts of his novels before he was satisfied. I would find myself doing the same thing when I wrote my scholarly books and they weren't even half as good as the Hemingway novels. Success in writing comes after miserable and at times torturous writing sessions that often leave you anything but happy. Those people who say they just "love everything about writing" are those who write little, write fluff, or the ones who use ghost writers. That is the case with many of today's television pundits who put out a book a year.
Recently, I dumped a collection of essays in the works for years. It was a project I wanted to do so badly, but after taking a hard look at what I had done, I decided it just didn't work. It was like casting a beloved grandchild out into the "cold and dreary world". At the same time, if we don't learn to make hard decisions about what is good and what is not about our writing we won't progress. As it is, we often let thing slip by. Surely I have done it and recently I read something by someone I admire very much who did just that. The post was simply not very good and I could tell he had not put in the time.
But enough about me. Enjoy--or maybe not--as you are reminded of the torture sessions that await that next great scholarly book, novel, short story, essay...idea.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/magazine/junot-diaz-hates-writing-short-stories.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120930
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