Writing shouldn't be this hard

There's a certain irony that the thing I've (for the most part) chosen to trade in on for my livelihood–my ability to string together words and sentences into something vaguely appealing–turns out to be something I don't, on the surface, enjoy.

I've written about this before, so I don't really want to belabor the point, but it's maddening how often writing is almost physically painful for me (and literally physically painful, thanks to too many years spent at ergonomically unsound desks). As with most creative endeavors (and even writing a line of copy for an ad is, despite its transactional nature, still "creative"), inspiration and excitement come in fits and starts, often directly affected by whatever is happening around us in the moment. Fatigue, lack of caffeine, too much caffeine, a distracting song, hunger, conflicting deadlines, Mercury in retrograde–they all play into one's ability to produce or choke.

My challenge always seems to be tied into available time for writing versus drive for writing. Basically, there's an inverse proportion happening: The more time I have available, the less drive I have, and vice versa. Often, I find myself most brimming with ideas and the willingness to execute when I'm on the hook for other priorities demanding attention. Maybe that's because my brain is already looking for a distraction, so breaking an episode or writing a scene becomes that distraction, whereas if I sit down purposely to work on a script, my brain looks for a distraction from that (usually on YouTube).

There are people I know who love writing. It pours out of them. They'll sit for hours and just scribble/type away, words flowing onto their page or screen. And yeah, I used to be able to do that, before I started getting paid to do it. But these days, it's a fight to get out every word, every phrase, every paragraph. That's why when the feeling comes, when a scene or story beat or new concept pops into my head, I have to stop everything and get to writing. Because if I don't, catching that elusive feeling again seems nearly impossible.