I got an email from a friend the other day. She's reading the autobiography of Roald Dahl and sent me a quote from the book, asking me if this is what writing is like for ME. The answer? I'll tell you after you read the quote.
"The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whiskey than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it."
Oh my GOSH! Yes, this is how life is for me (minus the whiskey). I got chills reading this because Mr. Dahl might have been writing it about me.
If you write, is this how it is for you? And you readers, do you ever feel dazed after reading a really good book?
