Here is why writing feels so hard to many people: because their expectation doesn’t match the reality of how good writing is actually created.

Many people have an ideal of sitting down at a computer and just letting the words flow out perfectly. The heavens open up, birds sing outside, and a ray of light descends from above as they post their work, email it, or send it off to the editor.

That, however, is a fantasy. It’s not how good writing actually gets done.

Writing is like mowing your lawn with a push mower. It’s a lot of manual labor. Sometimes it’s pretty monotonous. You have to go back and get the spots you missed. You get pretty messy in the process.

While you’re mowing the lawn, you get sweaty and dirty and you can’t see the big picture. But when you’re done, you can stand back and look at your perfectly mowed lawn and appreciate all your hard work.

Good writing happens the same way. It is created through hard work, persistence, multiple drafts, editing, and finishing what you started. This is how professionals work, and it’s how you must work, too.

Question: Do you want to write badly enough that you are willing to endure the messy part of writing in order to get to that wonderful final draft?