Writing is a masochistic endeavor, at least, for me it is. Words don't come easy. Sentences are wrought in fire. Like any craft, I suppose, it takes toil. To spill words onto a page -​- that is, to simply make noise -​- is effortless. The strife, the pain (as one Michelangelo might conceive it) is in drawing the statue out of raw marble. It is in drawing the statue out with blood, and in finding it malformed. Melodramatic, perhaps. But the point stands. It is labor to write.

Words are a tricky medium (just ask Nietzsche) for expression relies on fidelity, and words lie. In this sense, the pursuit is doomed from the start. But don't let this convince you that it is doomed only at the start. There is also endless struggle in originality and authenticity -​- speaking with your own voice. Sentences are drafted, reread. Oh, the horror of rereading. To see in your words the markings of cheap imitation! To break tone: we're Bumblebee from the Transformers. We speak by splicing and mangling the words of others, words that, to begin with, misguide. And Frankenstein loathes his monster. But I'm cursed to need to write.

It might be a compliment to tell myself that something I wrote reads like Kafka, Dostoevsky, Didion, or Proust. It would also be delirium to tell myself this, but it matters not. At best I try and fail. My voice is trite contrivance. I read in hopes of glimpsing what makes writing great. Good artists copy; great artists steal. I can do neither and am worse off for it. To quote a wise man: "Fuck."

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