The writer as Sisyphus

In an ancient Greek myth, evil King Sisyphus of Corinth ratted out Zeus for abducting the nymph Aegina. Zeus punished him by condemning him to an eternity of pushing a boulder uphill over and over again, only to have it roll back down just before reaching the summit.

Writers everywhere can sympathize.

Our task perhaps is worse: We never get a reprieve. Sisyphus at least could stroll down the hill after each effort. As writers, the more we know about writing, the more room for improvement we see in our own work.

This is not such a bad thing. Where would the fun be if we reached some plateau and said, "Now I'm the best writer I can possibly be." Every book afterward would be like factory work, putting parts together over and over to produce a product. And isn't that boring repetition one of the reasons we left the security of our day jobs to become writers?

In a post at my own blog last week, I detailed my struggle to understand the term "on the nose" and to grasp why on-the-nose writing was a bad thing.

Several years ago, I spent months struggling with the technique of deep point of view. I finally understand it, but I still struggle to execute it. Next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, new problems will crop up that I must solve to improve my writing. Like dancers, like musicians, writers continue learning their art their whole life.

Author and philosopher Albert Camus said this of Sisyphus:

....one must imagine Sisyphus happy....The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

Thanks for visiting my blog. Next time, on June 23, I'll talk about deep POV for those of you frustrated that I did not define it here.

—Shauna Roberts