Thomas Disch expresses very eloquently what I’ve been trying for years to put my finger on about the hardest part of writing (or at least the part that takes the longest):
“I think it took me a while to figure out what the book was about, emotionally. Also the trick of any book is getting the tone.”
I often know what happens in every scene through a whole book, but am hard pressed to put pen to paper until I discover that magical tone that makes it all come together on the page and in my mind.
Which suggests to me that actually the hardest part about writing is the actual writing. I’m sure to find that elusive tone faster with enumerable miscues of the pen than misfires of the synapses. Leonard Wolf was right when he said (as quoted in Naomi Wolf’s The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom From My Father on How to Live, Love, and See) to write anything, just put down the words. Writing is hard, but it is impossible to edit a blank page.
