Shoveling
London, 2010.
My friend Martha lent me her copy of Stephen King's memoir On Writing. Perhaps because of the place I was in my own work at the time, one passage in particular jumped out at me. I went to dog-ear the page (yes, in a borrowed book - in my defense, it was already a well-loved copy), and was delighted to find that, because Martha is a writer, she had dog-eared it too.King is referring to writing, but I'm pretty sure this applies to anything you care about passionately, even when it's really freaking hard."[S]topping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position."
Keep shoveling, friends.
Posted on Thursday, Jun 3, 2010
