Saturday, December 7, 2013  The Pain of Writing  photo by paper
pastries Ernest Hemingway said, "There's nothing to writing. All
you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Today we sit in
front of computers but Hemingway's sentiment still rings true.
The act of writing is fulfilling yet painful.  Between undergrad
and grad school, I've spent an infinite number of hours typing
stories and papers on my laptop. Afternoons and all-nighters
filled with despair, Coca-Cola, and fervency. Fulfilling a
writing assignment usually feels as physically and mentally
exhausting as running a marathon.  When I have a story deadline,
I typically procrastinate because the blank page is a wall that
appears too tall to climb. So I sit at the bottom and look up in
dismay. Hours before my story is due I begin scaling the wall
while the clock steadily dwindles. I need the fever of a
deadline to spur me into action.  This dysfunctional writing
cycle produces unnecessary pain and stress. Once I finish my
story, with only a few min