“Those writers you think are masters of the craft aren’t created that way. They aren’t supernaturally capable ninja writer-bots. When you read the work of a writer operating at the top of her game, you’re not seeing all the years of failed efforts, of work that wasn’t quite right, of work that was well-intentioned or built off of strong ideas but had slick and wobbly legs like a newborn fawn.
You see the author operating at a high level and you wonder: why am I not doing that?
The reality is:
You’re only seeing the island, not the heap of volcanic material that pushed it out of the sea.”
| — | Chuck Wendig – “Polling Your Intestinal Flora: How A Writer Cultivates Instinct” |
The Birds and the Fleas 