Work that is fun

Cutting and trimming, cutting and trimming.
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I’ve explained why editing and revising is the most challenging part of the writing process for me. I’ve also mentioned that drafting – getting the story out onto the page – is my favorite part, but I haven’t explained why. Whenever I’m drafting, I can feel warmth in my brain. It’s the “creating” part of this creative process. I can just … make things happen, put the words onto paper, and then it’s done! That’s fantastic. It’s fun to draft stories.

It’s work, no doubt about that. I have to set a minimum daily wordcount for myself or else it won’t ever get done. I spend many nights up past midnight to reach that minimum count every day during the drafting process, no exceptions. I work weekends, holidays, and sick days to make sure I never fall short. In some ways, I have to treat it like a job in order to get the draft finished. In other ways, though, as difficult as that can be, as hard as it can be to push through exhaustion and confusion to get the thing done, as taxing as it can be to feel like I’m laboring away for an ungrateful taskmaster (me), I enjoy it in a way that I just cannot with the revising and editing stage. Slapping the story out on the table is the fun part; editing and revising is the slow, painful, and necessary part. Gotta have both, but I can’t help but like the former more than the latter.

Write your story!
-J. E. Ayers