Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”  Isaac Asimov

How to Enjoy Writing: A book of Aid and Comfort — I can’t remember how this friendly guide by Janet and Isaac Asimov came my way, but I love it! It’s chock-a-block with anecdotes, cartoons, and pithy, practical advice. When I pulled it off my shelf, these words leaped out:

“Don’t believe everything you’ve read and heard about the horrors of creative effort, but don’t expect too many writers to tell the truth — that they love to write. There’s always the popular suspicion that if you’re not actively suffering, you aren’t really work and probably aren’t creating anything worth while. Any activity is enjoyable if:

1)  You do it well.
2)  You think it’s worth doing.
3)  You feel good while doing it (physically, emotionally, and mentally).
4)  It helps others (this includes entertaining them).
5)  It makes money.
6)  It brings you positive response.

“Launching yourself into a life of creative work does not guarantee the fulfillment of all these items immediately or ever, but you are bound to achieve one or two, and — ask any creative worker — that makes it worthwhile.

“Animals seem to enjoy whatever activity they were built to do, and human beings are no exception. Humans seem particularly designed for creative work. They have large brains, the capacity for language, extraordinary hands, and good vision….

“And if you genuinely want to be or stay, a writer, consider the premise that writing is the most creative work of all, and — because it exercises the innate human ability to imagine and to communicate — the most pleasurable.

“We may be slightly prejudiced about this.”

Janet and Isaac’s love affair with scrivening inspired many decades of joy and productivity. Let’s take a leaf from them and write on!