Imagine the technical difficulties of a painter whose canvas was always being rolled off one stick on to another stick, and who was compelled to do his picture inch by inch, seeing nothing but the particular inch which happened to be under his brush. That difficulty is only one of the difficulties of the novelist.
Sixteen
It is a fact that few novelists enjoy the creative labour, though most enjoy thinking about the creative labour. Novelists enjoy writing novels no more than ploughmen enjoy following the plough. They regard business as a “grind.”
Seventeen
The born journalist comes into the world with the fixed notion that nothing under the sun is uninteresting. He says: “I cannot pass along the street, or cut a finger, or marry, or catch a cold or a fish, or go to church, or perform any act whatever, without being impressed anew by the interestingness of mundane phenomena, and without experiencing a desire to share this impression with my fellow-creatures.”
Eighteen
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
Nineteen
It is much easier to begin a novel than to finish it. This statement applies to many enterprises, but to none with more force than to a long art-work such as a novel or a play.