“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Thomas Mann

I laughed when I came across this quote because it is so true. Writers, we scribblers, take a form of expression and wrestle with it, fight it, bend it, shape it, torture it and ourselves and those near and dear to us, and for what?

Answer: To perfect said form of expression and show it to the world.

Next obvious question is: why?

Answer: Because we have to.

I’m reading a fun book, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life, by Dinty W. Moore. Why is writing harder for writers? Moore says:

“Because we care about finding the precise word, the clearest expression, and we understand that sometimes a thought needs to be revised tens or hundreds of times before we find the perfect way to say what we really mean.”

So true. May God, Buddha, and Krishna – oh, and Allah too – have mercy on myself and my writing companions. We only do what we have to do, and now we’re growing old (Willie Nelson, Pancho and Lefty)