Falling in Love with Your Writing

Starting a new writing project is often like the beginning of a relationship, like one with a new love. In the beginning, you’re all in, unquestioning. You’re so enamored, you see no fault, no trouble ahead. You only see how much you have in common, how perfect you are for each other, and how much you want to be together. Is there anything better than that feeling, than the first kiss?

The desire for a new writing project burns hot in the beginning, too. A new idea sends electricity through your system; you can’t wait to get started. Sparks fly when your first words hit the page.

The beginnings of things are full of strong desire, but that red-hot flame wanes over time. The rush we feel at the beginning of a relationship is thrilling, but it isn’t what sustains a relationship over the long term. And I don’t know that hot, passionate desire necessarily sustains a writing project over the long term either.

Much of what makes a relationship successful and satisfying in the longer term is about showing up to do the work and problem-solving, being committed and riding out the rough patches. The same goes for a writing project. If we expect our writing process to be zingy, red-hot fireworks all the time, we are bound to feel disappointed or like failures when the sparkly feeling wanes.

People who are hooked on the rush of desire that comes in the beginning will often start a writing project and then drop it when the challenge of the work necessary to it to completion sets in. When the flame burns out, so do they.

Showing up to do the real work—fully present and open to possibility even when the sparkle is gone—is probably the hardest part of writing.

But you know what?

If you stick with it, show up, and do the work even on the days where there is no desire at all, there will be minutes, days, even weeks, often when you least expect it, when you will achieve a satisfying feeling much like that desire you feel in the beginning, only much better, much deeper.

I say all this to myself as much as I say it to you. (And I need to remind myself often.)

Yes, fall in love with the thrill of new ideas, a new project, but learn to love and take joy in the fullness of the process it takes to make it happen, too.

This article originally appeared in The Florida Writer magazine.