Following on from my last post, I saw a quote by Jodi Piccoult about the task of writing. It comes from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on July 21st.

Jodi has written many books, and I consider her to be a good writer. ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ is one that stands out in my mind.

The quote reads:

‘Writing is total grunt work. A lot of people think it’s all about sitting and waiting for the muse. I don’t buy that. It’s a job. There are days when I
really want to write, days when I don’t. Every day I sit down and write. You can always edit something bad. You can’t edit something blank.’

How true is that! Yesterday, I was procrastinating about writing a particular sscene in my young adult novel. I forced myself to sit at the computer and at least have a go at it. The result was that it flowed really nicely. But I wouldn’t have minded if I’d written rubbish, because I knew that editing it would be far easier than trying to create it in the first place.

It’s words of wisdom like these from Jodi that help us keep pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.