H. D. Dodson

I know I keep talking lately about how hard writing a novel is, and maybe that’s because I’m back in the trenches of creating a first draft.  (Which is the absolute hardest part of the process to me.)  But there’s one more point I want to make about this whole idea of being a writer, and why we do it despite the difficulty.

So, I’m drafting.  I’m building a world — a huge world.  Something bigger and more expansive than I’ve ever attempted before.  And oh my goodness is it hard.  Flat out, plain old hard.  Yesterday I caught myself thinking that what I need is a bigger head.  There needs to be more room in there to hold all of these bits and pieces of this story together because it’s so MUCH.

The thing with this story is the challenge is what makes it so incredibly enticing.  As I mentioned before, I actually have another story I could be writing — one with a complete synopsis and outline.  A story that I know would be good and fun and all of that…but then I’m faced with this massively shiny, challenging world that is so full of potential and the promise of adventure and fun and HOW in the world could I ever not go after it?

Sometimes the fact that writing is hard is what makes it so very desirable.  I think, as writers, we are problem solvers.  More than that, after solving the problem, we then want to go back and find out WHY it happened in the first place.  Am I right?  Isn’t that the basis for any story?

My point here is that just because something is hard, just because it’s a challenge and makes you want to tear your hair out in frustration, doesn’t mean it’s a misery.  Because once you master that seemingly impossible task — and you will if you put your mind to it — you’ll realize just how rewarding all of that frustration is.

I enjoy a challenge.  At the end of the day, when this story is complete, there is no doubt in my mind that I will be more proud of it than any story that came before because it was so hard to pull off.

Never back down, and never surrender, that’s what I say.

What do you guys think?  Do you enjoy writing things that challenge you or do you stick to what you’re comfortable with?