Creativity and The Grind

There are those that say that the hardest part about writing a story is getting started. I strongly disagree and feel that the middle part of the story is the hardest. For me, getting started is relatively easy, as all these ideas pop up in my head and my motivation is at its peak. However, that cannot be sustained forever, and there will come a time in the writing process where one will have to just grind. There are days when I’m not particularly motivated or inspired, but I must sit in front of the screen and write.

I think that people get it wrong with the creative process. It is not a matter of just sitting idly waiting for inspiration to come, and from there, an individual just writes a whole bunch of pages. I treat writing like a job in that some days are good, and some days are not so good. Regardless of the good or bad days, I take time to write, and it is usually something that I schedule. It is actually quite mundane, and many times, boring.

Understandably, there is this romantic viewpoint of creative arts. I am sure that there are some artists, writers and other creative types that do unconventional things to get inspiration, but I am not that type. I make a time, have some sort of alarm clock ready, keep distractions away from me and write. It is certainly much more cerebral and less artsy, but I treat this like a job.