Easy Reading is Damn Hard Writing

"Easy reading is damn hard writing." Tell it like it is, Mr. Hawthorne. I came back home from a long day of running errands (and too exhausted to worry about my manuscript one iota) to open my laptop and see this quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne floating on the screen. Brilliant. You get it Nate, you totally get it.

I immediately posted it on Facebook and Twitter, and then my thoughts drifted toward my grandmother. She always used to say stuff like this, as she wrote books that appealed to such a wide audience which ranges in age from 3 to 103. There is an attitude that writing for children is "easy," and she would bristle at this, offended for both children and for all of the work she had put into her craft of writing.

Indeed, her books are effortless to read, as are many other wonderful authors' books, authors who help you to become lost in their world, to identify with their characters and co-create the experience of "story" - it's a very intimate relationship, that between author and reader.

I hope that my "damn hard writing" will come across with "easy reading", and I need to remind myself of this as I continue to practice my craft, and hopefully improve on a daily basis. Thank you to the late Nathaniel Hawthorne and Madeleine L'Engle, who have made me feel a little less alone today, by thinking of them and their struggles with craft - are not so different from mine.