George Orwell on Writing
"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention."
--George Orwell "Why Do I Write?"
(first published in "Gangrel, No. 4" in the summer of 1946.)
A quote that got me thinking. The rest of the essay is here.
I agree on the horrible exhausting struggle bit. But every once in a great while it also feels like the super fun part of a roller coaster, the part when the car you're in begins to hurtle down the next big hill, and you feel a giddy weightlessness mixed with the anticipation of building speed and you can't help but laugh and go "wheeeeeee!"
(I'd like to stay in the "wheee" part, but I humbly accept that I'll only get a few of 'em and the rest will sort of make me queasy. Such is life. Such is art.)
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