Writing really IS like love!

. I read Narelle’s post about writing being like love – if it hurts, you’re not doing it right – with interest – and I immediately emailed Narelle to point out that as someone supremely unlucky in love, it always hurt!

But the more I think of it, the more the original simile holds true.

When we fall in love, we gather up the best parts of our heart and soul, and hand them over to someone else for safekeeping. When we write, we take that same heart and soul and lay it out on the page. But rejection comes, as it does to all of us (except for the blessed, lucky, charmed few). At best, the person we loved gives us a kindly no. At worst, they give us a detailed, precise account of our many faults. And when we send off our work to the publishers, back comes that rejection slip – at best a kindly no – at worst…..

And then there’s 4a.m.thoughts, when you lie awake, in cold cruel clear dawn light, the same bleak thoughts running over and over through your head. Why won’t he/she love me? What’s wrong with me? Will I ever get published? Am I any good, or just fooling myself? What’s the point of it all?

And then there’s the disappointments. That great passionate love affair dwindles into mundanity. The truly great novel you were writing turns into a turgid mess.

Until finally, defeated and frustrated, we crawl under our duvet, shut out the world, and swear we’ll never try again.

But this is where writing becomes exactly like love – for us writers, that is. It keeps tapping us the shoulder. It keeps whispering the words into our ear. And one glorious, wonderful day, standing in the rain, or in the shopping queue, or on the bus, it hits again. That urge to write, like the urge to love, struggles up to the surface, and we give in, because, despite all the disappointment and rejection, we deserve our happy ending, damn it, and we’ll try our hardest to get it!

So I agree with Narelle’s original simile – with one change. Writing is like love – if it hurts, you’re just going to carry on anyway, because in the end it’s worth it.