No one has to be patient anymore. We can publish books from our computers. We can get messages anywhere, anytime. We can have whole libraries of books instantly zapped to whatever our latest gadget is, or a complete film festival delivered at the click of a button. We can plug ourselves directly into our music without bothering with CDs. We never, ever, have to be bored, subjected to silence, or deal with our inner life. 

But no matter how fast the world zips along, no matter how much fun there is to be had, the fact remains that writing takes time.  To write takes dreaming and remembering and thinking and imagining – and very often what feels like wasting time. It takes silence and solitude. It takes being okay with making a huge mess and not knowing what you’re doing. Then it takes rewriting and struggling to find your story and the truth of the story, and then the meaning of the story.  It takes being comfortable with your own doubts and fears and questions. And there’s just no fast and easy way around it.

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“We are afraid of writing, even those of us who love it. And there are parts we hate. The necessary mess, the loss of control, its ability to betray us, as well as the possibility that what we write might be lousy, it might stink…how to feel at ease with all this? How just to let one’s work be? “  – Bonnie Friedman, Writing Past Dark

(from A Year of Writing Dangerously by Barbara Abercrombie)