Thoughts from two great sportswriters on the challenge of writing:
Rick Reilly (formerly of SI, now exiled to ESPN)
I really hate to write. Abhor it. I write at restaurants and bars, so I don’t feel so abjectly alone.
Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star
People don’t believe me when I say this … but I never like my columns or stories after I finish them. Never. I see other writers, friends, they finish a piece, and you can see it in their faces, they are really content, they clearly know that what they just wrote is good. I’m kind of jealous: I’ve never had that touchdown dance feeling after writing a story. I’ve never written the final words of anything and thought, “Yeah, now that story kicks some serious butt.”
It’s not like I always think what I wrote is BAD either. Sometimes I do, yes. Most of the time, though, I finish a story, and I just feel spent, and I think: “Well, OK, that was the best I could do.” It’s not a negative feeling — it’s sort of the way you might feel after you put in the final piece of a large puzzle. But I never feel like I just wrote something really good.