Is writing hard?
At the 2011 screenwriter’s lecture for BAFTA, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman announced, “A writer is someone for whom writing is harder than it is for other people.”
What is so hard about writing? You just have to put ideas into words, put pen to paper, fingertips to keyboard. You can write about anything you want, without any limitations or budget constraints. You can write personal stories based in reality or invent completely new worlds. So what’s the big deal?
When I was 11 years old, I was at my best friend’s house and we wanted to go outside and play. There was an old barn nearby that we liked to explore because its creepy state of disrepair got our adrenaline pumping. I was pushing to go out, but she said she needed to finish her homework first : a short story writing assignment. Motivated by the desire to get our exploring on, I suggested we write something real quick together to get it done and over with.
I proceeded to sit down at her computer and write, reading out loud as I did. We didn’t question any of the choices in the writing, as absurd and open-ended as some of them were. The most important thing was to keep moving forward and not to look back— that would get this thing finished as fast as possible. We took a little extra time writing some more graphic descriptions to satisfy the teacher and before we knew it, we were outdoors running free.
She got a good grade for the assignment, but that’s not the moral of the story here. What I learned that day was that you can force creativity. It doesn’t have to come in the form of a mysterious rush of inspiration. Just give yourself a time limitation and squeeze something out. However ugly and misshapen it may at first seem, it’s a start.
So why is writing so hard? It’s because we think it has to be in order to be good. But that’s just the adult brain getting in the way of the free child within us. Don’t give the adult brain the upper hand. Let the child write next time. And challenge yourself not to look back; self-editing is creative suicide. Be a treadmill writer — keep moving forward, even if it seems you’re not going anywhere meaningful. You’ll get there eventually.
