Good Work Is Hard Work

All the things that people are proud of required a lot of work to do.  No matter how you slice it, if you want to do good work, you will have to do a lot of hard work for it.

Writing is hard work.  There are no perfect first drafts.  I have agonized over writing single sentences.  I have agonized over finding the right words.  And of course, there is the sheer work of forcing yourself to work on writing without doing anything else.

Sometimes, though, good work can seem effortless.  I can edit very quickly and very easily.  When somebody hands me a document to edit, I can fix technical errors and stylistic issues as I am going through it.  And yes, in large part, editing is very easy to me.  But the catch to that is that I put in my hard work previously.  I have read a great deal, studied the language intently for years, studied the patterns and "rules", which most people will agree is no simple task.

Whether you put in your effort early on or you do it as you work, it's going to happen if you want to make something worth making.