“So, how’s the writing going?” my friend asked over lunch.

“I’m working on my novel,” I sighed. “More like getting back to it, I guess. I’m about 2/3rds there. I hit a rough patch but just need to get back to it.”

My voice lacked the enthusiasm you might expect from someone whose work, as my husband describes it, is to “make stuff up.” My tone and mood shifted from happy to heavy, my work-in-progress weighing on my mind and mood.

“Why do you writers do this to yourselves?” he observed. “All my writer friends say the same thing. I ask about their work, and they sigh and tell me how hard it is.”
“Busted!” I laughed and conceded his point.

Still, I couldn’t shake the question: Why do we do this to ourselves?

Lawrence Kasdan, Oscar-nominated screenwriter for The Big Chill and best known as co-writer of The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, said: “Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.”

Now, there’s someone whose made it. Created a career out of making stuff up. He’s figured out the answer to my friend’s question, right? Staying with a project, keeping his butt in the chair isn’t an issue for him, yes? If I could just get to his place, I tell myself, that’d be great. Instead, his quote relieves and aggravates me – I’m relieved to keep company with a successful writer and aggravated that success doesn’t guarantee against the hard work of showing up at the page.

The famous screenwriter, or Pulitzer-prize winning columnist, and beloved novelist who inspired me to try my hand at this work, all say – after years and years of putting their work into the world and actually making a living doing it – that they still resist doing the work which got them to this level of success in the first place. The same resistance that my friend sees in the writers he knows.

Steven Pressfield has built a big part of his career on dealing with resistance in his seminal work, The War of Art. Resistance is always there, he writes. Do the work anyway. Simple enough. Yet, the question lingers: Why do writers write?

I can’t speak for all of us, but here are some reasons why I write:
• The world needs true and good stories
• The page has saved my life and kept me sane
• People tell me my words have helped them
• Life brings inspiration and ideas that need to be spoken into the world
• Just when I think I might run out of ideas, more show up

I need to remember these reasons every day, no matter the accomplishments of yesterday. The sun rises on new possibilities, and resistance hits the reset button – in fatigue and distraction and hunger and self-doubt – trying to keep my pen from this page. All this is part of the process, challenging and inviting me to push through it, mute the volume on the Inner Critic, and just get started. I’ll write a word after a word after a word and see what shows up. My first work is managing the resistance. Once I do that, the rest falls into place.

So, my fellow writers and creatives, what keeps you going? How do you deal with resistance?