Why do people think writing is easy?

Because a lot of people tell them it is.
(BLOGS!)

 

Good point.

 

Why do people think writing is easy? Because writing is easy....spelling, now that's a gift!

 

Only if I think I can do better.

 

I find that most people are under the impression that writing isn't physical work, therefore requires zero effort. I find those people to be assholes, but that's just me.

 

Writing is the most easiest.

 

Could be worse. Every activity I attend with non-photo friends and my family, I'm expected to bring along a camera and take fabulous pictures of everyone present.

Then they say, "If I had a nice camera, I could take good pictures, too."

So, not only is my job so easy a trained monkey could do it, it's easy enough that I'm supposed to spend my leisure time doing. Be glad you don't have to write gamers for every birthday party you attend.

 

I'm astonished by those bloggers who can just pour shit out. For me writing is like pulling teeth. My internal editor is a fucking stingy ASSHOLE.

 

If you really care about it, that's usually how it goes.

I read a great interview with Richard Ben Cramer where he said he just figured Tom Wolfe was on another level from the rest of us and the words just poured out of him like that, his pieces and books and novels fully formed from the womb.

Well he walks into the Rolling Stone office one day to write a story or something along those lines, and there's Wolfe at a desk, struggling over his sentences. He recognized "the look" as Wolfe struggled to write whatever he was working on and it was a revelation for him: "Tom, you M.F.," he says he thought to himself, "you're a working-class stiff just like the rest of us after all."

 

I always get comments like "it doesn't take much to write", "writing is the easiest and laziest profession".
It infuriates me to hear stuff like that. It takes a lot to craft a story and do research to compliment stories, get comments/quotes for the story, create a catchy lead/headline. It takes a lot of effort, and if you get writer's block or brain lapses, it takes longer and it is harder. I always tell people who say that to me to go ahead and write a 500 word story on a sports issue and see if they can do it in 30 minutes. That is when they realize how hard it is.

 

What's that quote?

"Easy writing makes for hard reading."

 

When I read that, I didn't understand why this thread has the subject line it does. I interpreted the comments the way I do when this happens to me: that people know writing isn't easy, that it doesn't come easy for them, and they marvel when someone can write well, and they're paying you a compliment. Whether or not they think writing is easy for me (or you), I can't say, but I've never took it that way.

I've always accepted it as a high compliment. I'm also certain they have no idea how hard it is, but they know how hard it is for them.