Writing is an unnatural act

Staying at it, persevering, finishing, overcoming obstacles, sitting in the chair alone in a room, writing chapter by chapter, problem-solving, concentrating … if you ask me, these are unnatural acts. Especially if you know people are outside having fun, and you’re inside, editing, revising, counting words, solving plot problems, flouting or observing genre conventions as you see fit, you, the lord of all words, this is all deeply unnatural and strange.

So why worry when you don’t want to do it or you find yourself devising strategies of escape from writing? It’s quite natural not to want to do it. Especially if you have to do it alone. Writing in a newsroom is distracting but at least it is not isolating. You don’t feel like you’ve been abandoned. It is pointless to pretend that you’re going to enjoy this process, or that it is going to bring you health and happiness. It isn’t. It is going to annoy you and put you in a bad mood. Not to mention the effect on your personality and sociability of spending hours at a time controlling an imaginary world. This intoxication of omnipotence must be left at the writing table. But no. The intoxication persists; the delusion persists; you leave the table and encounter the world and everything in it defies your will, that will so willingly obeyed by the subjects of your fiction. It’s startling how resistant store clerks and wives are to your imperious will, especially when the phantoms of your prose have been bending in your wind for months and years.

When you emerge from your throne as the ruler of all your kingdoms, you really need to get a grip.