Work versus pleasure: the issue for professional writers. We don’t acknowledge this enough. If writing is your job, will each day be filled with creative joy? Honestly, no. Writing is a discipline. It’s hard work. There’s no muse, no magic, no billowing gowns or rapturous sighs as we write or type.

“I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”

This was probably my most viral tweet. I've seen it pop up in a lot of quote aggregators, sometimes attributed to a wonderful but definitely not-me filmmaker.

Being a perfectionist in your writing is the default setting for new writers. We all start that way. But when you’re building a house, you don’t paint it as you go. You lay a foundation, build a structure, put in the wiring & pipes, build the walls and lay the floors, THEN you can think about paint.