Writing Is Easy And It Is Hard

Picture courtesy of: http://www.google.com

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Neil Gaiman is right. Writing is easy – and it’s hard.

We writers have a story in our head, and we want it written. That’s what we love doing; the book is what we want to accomplish.

But there is so much more. The characters, the plot, the genre, the word count, the editing, the cover, the formatting, the copyright, the beta reading, the hope and the fears.

Many of us, I figure, have the same fears that I have: Is the story as good as I hope it will be? Could I have done better? What does the reader want? What do the readers say? How are the reviews going to be? Is the book the way I wanted it to be? Are my characters the way I imagined them? There are so many more questions my fear, right now, won’t release.

In many ways, our passion is easy: just a keyboard (or a piece of paper and a pen), and we’re on it. But still, it is hard work. Do we think about everything we learned? Is the story the way we had it in our head?

And the writing is only one part. The ones of us who planned to go the self-publishing way, our work only start started with the publishing date. The networking, the marketing, getting the word and the book out there.

I think I’m not the only one who would love to write, just write and write and write… but then, I want my stories to be read too. And when it comes to that, I need to get all this work done.

That’s the hard part for me. (Apart of all fears and nightmares, of course).

So, yes. Neil Gaiman is right. Writing is easy – and it’s hard.

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Picture courtesy of: Wikipedia.com

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman, (born Neil Richard Gaiman 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films.

His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals.

He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards. (Source: Wikipedia)