"Writers on Writing"

This is from page 46 of the August 2005 Romance Writers Report, the magazine from the Romance Writers of America. It's an excerpt from an interview with Julia Ross, written by Eileen Putnam.

EP: Writers struggle in solitary, which--in the worst case scenario--mires us in an internal dialogue that can spiral into fear and paralysis. Do you have any strategies for overcoming this problem?

JR: Firstly, I try to ignore my emotions about writing and just write. After all, it's not about me; it's about the story. Once, when I was feeling especially overwhelmed, a writer friend said, "Why are you complaining that it's hare? It's meant to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it." I'm not sure why, but I find that thought very liberating. Writing a novel is meant to be hard, and our fears are part of the territory. So be brave! If you're scared, write scared.

I think Ross's idea to ignore my emotions and just write, to focus on the story, could be very helpful to me to get past my anxiety and other distress. Although, for me, that distress is PRE-writing, not when I actually get my fanny into the seat.

I also think that "it's meant to be hard" is an interesting sentiment. Because for those of us who think it's a breeze to put sentence after sentence together, as those of us who have always been good at English will attest, writing coherently isn't the hard part. No, something that has always come easily begins to get hard when we are trying to plot well, make it interesting, reveal character, etc. These are new muscles that we are stretching, and the worry that it might not be good is overwhelming.