Writing is a funny thing
I published a single essay probably seven different times yesterday.
What happened was I would post the essay, read it all the way through, get embarrassed about a few things, and then hit āunpublish.ā The exact same cycle six or seven times.
I hear it all the time that the best songs ever written were the easiest to write. They flowed out of the writer in a matter of minutes. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Yesterday for me it was the opposite. A big struggle start to finish.
Some say good writing is rewriting. But Iām not sure itās worthwhile to toil and toil over an essay that is simply not working. Particularly for personal pieces, the best stuff is raw. Unedited. Unforced.
I donāt know what the recipe is for putting yourself in the position to have those moments that feel like divine inspiration. One of the tricks is probably writing daily, making your surface area for luck as large as possible. But who knows - I doubt thereās really much of a secret.
A person can write 1 million words over the course of his life. And often itās the 100 that felt the easiest to produce that end up being the biggest hit. Writing is a funny thing.