Have you ever noticed that writers surround themselves with other writers?

Given the option on reading, a writer would prefer to read a book about another writer than almost any other topic.

And writers tend to congregate with and befriend other writers.

I believe this is unique if you think about it.

Most of us just want an escape.

But most writers are envious little creatures with the self-esteem of a small drooping plant.

“Writers read literary biography, and surround themselves with other writers, deliberately to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your life span plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration, in the company of pieces of paper.”

–Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Writing is hard.

Did you know that?

That is how it works.

Making great art should be incredibly hard.

Good-grief, anything worth doing should be difficult.

This should all seem obvious, but so many can’t seem to get past comparing themselves to others.

Don’t fall prey to this.

Largely, overnight easy success you see in your peers is a myth.

Most all success is a result of persistence.

This is because grit wins.

Boldness and discipline trumps passion.

“Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in six weeks; he claimed he knocked it off in his spare time from a twelve-hour-a-day job performing manual labor. There are other examples from other continents and centuries, just as albinos, assassins, saints, big people, and little people show up from time to time in large populations. Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion, perhaps twenty people can write a serious book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagara Falls in barrels, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms.”

–Annie Dillard, The Writing Life