By: Margaret Huntley
One piece of advice I’m sure everyone has heard at some point in their life is: “do what you love, and you won’t work another day in your life.” Phrases like this are part of the reason I decided to do my undergrad degree in creative writing. I have always loved to write. Over time, my notebook full of juvenile two-pagers developed into a laptop full of drafts, essays, and articles. While I am happy that I have the opportunity to pursue what I love as a career, I think statements like this are misleading. Doing what you love actually takes more work than you might think, especially when it comes to writing.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my first couple of years studying and exploring different types of writing. However, the more I have learned about how to write properly, the higher the standards I set for myself are and the harder I have to work to meet them. I look back at award-winning pieces that I wrote in high school and I hate them. For one of my most recent projects I actually took one of those pieces and completely reworked it until I was happy with the product because I hated the old draft so much. Even the things I write now take intense editing to perfect. But I’m sure that by the time I graduate I will hate these pieces too. When I reflect on this common phrase, I start to wonder how I could love writing so much but hate what I write, even after all the hard work I put in.
The answer to my question was discovered through an unlikely means: astronomy. In my program, no one can graduate without a science credit, so I took first-year astronomy. However, because I in no way love astronomy, I gave minimal effort. While I still did considerably well, I didn’t put in half the effort that I did for my writing projects. But the difference was that I wanted to work harder on my writing projects because I loved writing in a way that I didn’t love astronomy. So, what I loved required more work than what I didn’t.
Now, I understand that the phrase is not supposed to mean that you never work on stuff you love, but that it just doesn’t feel like work. Though this isn’t accurate either. Anyone who has had to overcome writer’s block or subject a personal piece to intense criticism will agree that writing, no matter how much you love it, takes a lot of work. But, trust me, it’s worth it.