Breaking the Laws of Nature: Writers as Wizard-Gods of Storytelling (or, This is Why Writing is Hard)

Here’s the truth: writing is hard.

That first draft you're writing? Hard.

The revisions you're pounding through? Hard.

The creation of characters, the building of a plot, the painting of the setting? Hard, hard, hard.

But here’s the other truth about writing: creating something out of nothing is technically against the laws of physics. It should be so hard it’s impossible, and here you are, DOING IT ANYWAY.

You started with blank pages. Empty nothing on a computer screen or notebook page. And you filled it. You put together words into sentences into paragraphs into pages that are forming a story. You are creating that story out of nothing. You are breaking the natural laws of the universe in order to add your story to it.

You tricky devil, you.

With every word you put on the page, you are making something new. Something purely yours. Out of the nothing of a blank page, you are making people, even entire worlds. Do you realize how powerful you are as you write? Creation is the realm of gods and geniuses. You are a wizard-god of storytelling.

source

It doesn’t have to be brilliant. It doesn’t even have to be good. It only has to be new. It only has to come from you. That is what makes it powerful. That is what makes you powerful. You are fighting the very universe to create something out of nothing, like some kind of renegade warrior god with words as your weapons.

So, yeah, it’s hard.

But just look at the worlds you’re adding to the cosmos.