Comfort Writing

Being sick sucks.

I’m sitting here waging a pitched battle against a sore throat, aching muscles and a tract that occasionally lets me know it’s not terribly happy at the moment either. I had to sortie out to gather reinforcements – chicken noodle soup, orange juice and toaster strudel. What? It was on sale. Seriously.

Anyway, this sojourn to the shop had me wondering what happens when a writer gets sick of writing. You can plow through thousands upon thousands of words only to start feeling groggy in the brain. You try to sleep it off, but when the morning comes you’re just as sick of the work as you were the night before. So what do you do?

One of the things I like to do could be considered ‘comfort writing.’

It’s not dissimilar to all the things that one can do when you run out of steam. I guess the Farraday counts. What it boils down to is that while writing is a job, and occasionally an arduous and thankless one, it’s also a form of art, and art should never feel more like a punishment than it does a joy.

I’m probably thinking more of writing fiction than I am non-fiction, as journalists and reporters write every day for the sake of informing rather than entertaining. However, many of the journalists I have met are vivacious people who still enjoy a good turn of phrase and often craft their articles to have a broader appeal than simply being informative. If you can’t take joy in what you do, it’s time to do something else. Life is too short to waste being miserable for extended periods of time.

Anyway, it was just a thought I had. Feel free to dismiss the preceding as the addled ramblings of a guy hopped up on Progresso, Minute Maid and DayQuil.