At least not for me. For any budding scribblers out there now grasping for the closest bottle, perhaps the best I can say is ‘it hasn’t gotten easier, yet’. It has only been a couple years, and I suppose tomorrow could be different.
But it seems to me writing is not like playing a musical instrument, where one day muscle memory kicks in and the notes flow beautifully from deft hands. You might get a sentence or two that way, maybe even a chapter, but you’ll never get a book.
Your standards of perfection or at least excellence aren’t really going to change, though if you’re wise you’ll learn to let things slide. Worse, as you gain more experience and learn more you’ll just see how many more improvements you can make. Your strengths will improve, but your weaknesses will dog you.
You’ll see your description is weak, your pace consistently too fast; you’ll see all the room for more sub-plots, more tension in those sub-plots, and the need for more satisfying conclusions to all of them. You’ll see your minor characters need flair to be more memorable and real, your protagonists need to be tested more, suffer more, succeed with more drama.
You can’t see me, but I released a rather long, drawn out sigh. No, I’m quite sorry, it doesn’t get any easier. If anything it gets more complicated as your ignorance reveals itself one finished story at a time. But, I do have some good news.
You can improve yourself. The work may not get ‘easier’ per se, but you’ll get better at it. You can learn to understand your own barriers and what makes you more productive and effective, just as you would in any other job. What time are you at your best? How many hours can you sit and do one thing effectively? Can you weave other things into your day, or are you better off focusing on one thing at a time? When should you eat and how much to help boost energy at the right moments?
Don’t worry what is normal or what other people do. That’s the beauty of being unemployed (er, sorry, self employed). You make your own schedule, now. Of course you’ll have to balance this with your other obligations in life. Perhaps you have a girlfriend or children or the ‘temporary’ part-time employment that pays for your writing habit. Your mother might occasionally wish to see you.
Regardless, the point is the same: master yourself, and your own habits. And though the ‘work’ may not get easier, though it may always be a hair-wrenching battle of finding the right words in the right order. You will always lose battles, but with patience and experience and self-knowledge, you can make sure you win the war.
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