{"id":1061,"date":"2015-04-28T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T02:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2015-04-28T14:36:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T02:36:18","slug":"what-is-written-without-effort-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1061","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What is written without effort \u2026\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Writing\"<\/a>When I first began writing for a living, I was surprised by how much effort it took to write a few hundred words of clear, easy-to-read prose.<\/p>\n

There was the gathering of the raw materials: the ideas, the facts, and the opinions.\u00a0 There was the writing and the rewriting. \u00a0And there was the reviewing and the polishing.\u00a0 (Lots<\/em> of polishing.)<\/p>\n

I put the amount of effort required down to the fact that I wasn\u2019t a proper writer.\u00a0 Writing was just something that I did, something that paid the rent and the grocer and the wine merchant, while I kept an eye out for an opportunity to do something else.\u00a0 But, as the years went by, the opportunities to do something else, something proper, became fewer and fewer.\u00a0 At 22, you can decide to go to law school; at 32, it\u2019s a little more problematic.\u00a0 By no means out of the question.\u00a0 Just a little more problematic.<\/p>\n

Of course, I realised that, sooner or later, someone was going to notice that I wasn\u2019t a proper writer.\u00a0 And then it would all be over.\u00a0 Then I really would have to find something else to do.<\/p>\n

In an effort to postpone the day when I was \u2018tumbled\u2019, I began to widen my playing field.\u00a0 I started writing for radio.\u00a0 If I was tumbled in radio, maybe I could still write for magazines.\u00a0 Or TV.\u00a0 Or for the corporate world.\u00a0 But the radio guys failed to spot that I was an imposter.\u00a0 I remained un-tumbled.\u00a0 And the cheques continued to tumble in.<\/p>\n

And then, in my mid-thirties, I had a chance lunch with a celebrated poet.\u00a0 \u2018I\u2019ve read some of your work,\u2019 he said.\u00a0 \u2018You\u2019re a craftsman.\u00a0 I hope that you are being properly rewarded.\u2019\u00a0 (Was being a craftsman the same as being a proper writer?\u00a0 I probably should have asked him.)<\/p>\n

A few years later, and again purely by chance, I had lunch with the head of the English department at a \u2018proper\u2019 university.\u00a0 \u2018Do you write every day?\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pretty much.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018And how many words \u2013 finished words, publishable words \u2013 do you usually produce in a day?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Not many,\u2019 I admitted.\u00a0 \u2018Five hundred.\u00a0 Seven hundred on a good day.\u00a0 A thousand on a really good day.\u2019<\/p>\n

He frowned slightly.\u00a0 But said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Well, you know,\u2019 I said, \u2018you write the words, you think about what you have written, you rewrite, you rearrange, you polish.\u00a0 It all takes time.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes,\u2019 he said.\u00a0 \u2018That\u2019s a respectable day\u2019s work.\u2019<\/p>\n

And later that very same day, now feeling slightly better about using so much effort to produce so few words, I came across a quote by Samuel Johnson: \u2018What is written without effort is, in general, read without pleasure.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

These 483 words have taken me the best part of three hours to think about, write, rewrite, and polish.\u00a0 I really hope that you find them a pleasure to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first began writing for a living, I was surprised by how much effort it took to write a few hundred words of clear, easy-to-read prose. There was the gathering of the raw materials: the ideas, the facts, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}