Writing Like Groundhog Day?
I just read a great article by Marvin Olasky here. In it he talks about how writing is all about persistence and determination. One writer in the article says:

Moneyball author Michael Lewis says, "The most common pleasant thing people say to me about my writing is that it looks 'effortless.'" Then he confesses, "It is the opposite of effortless. . . . I probably do 20 drafts of each chapter. I write something over and over. It's like Groundhog Day. My writing process is sweaty and inelegant."

Ain't that the truth! I also like the quote from Michael Crichton: "Books aren't written. They are rewritten." That is so true. The fun of writing is the initial spark of the idea, the process of figuring that idea out, fleshing it out into words, and finally producing a draft. Then, it starts getting ugly. Change this, change that. Most of the time the rewriting fine-tunes the work, sharpens the vocabulary and overall, improves it. But sometimes the writing just dies from overworking it too much.