W. B. Yeats and the Apparent Effortlessness of Good Writing

I said, “A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.”

- “Adam’s Curse,” W. B. Yeats

If you run a Google search on “effortless writing,” you’ll find a bunch of websites geared at offering proofreading services.

There’s a message in that. Anyone who writes will know the effortless look doesn’t come during the writing process. It’s the editing that does that.

Just as the sculptor exerts physical strength as the stone is chiselled towards perfection, similarly the writer’s energy must be spent in carving the vastness of vague inspiration into something lean and meaningful. The needless must be cut away. The art must be allowed to emerge, gleaming and perfect.

Despite all the effort, the perfect written word is going to look as if it leapt from the mind of the writer fully formed onto the page. Like Athena from the head of Zeus. Or, to be prosaic, a cake lifted from a cake tin in an advert, with no mention of the mixing and blending, egg breaking and flour sifting, required.

Then, like Yeats comments in his rueful words above, writers still run the risk of the rest of the world considering the writing process not “real” work.

Oh well.