Finally.

The truth, as I know it, about writing.

Junot Díaz, who wrote the 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, splays it all out, in O Magazine’s November 2009 issue.  You can read it here.

Some writers might disagree.  Some writers may sit down every morning, to be met with a fast barrage of clever and beautiful words.  Some writers may find their way as slick as butter.

Sadly, I’m not one of them.

My writing experience has been more like pulling teeth, to use a cliché.  Or rubbing sandpaper over skin, to use another.  Of course, there are a few wonderful days sprinkled in, where it seems that you’ve been given a rare morsel of delight, and those are quite satisfying.  There are enough of them that I keep plugging away.

The thing that sustains me is the desire to write.  All I can do is follow.

How about you?  What keeps you doing what you’re doing, whatever it is?

[Post image: Junot Díaz]