What happens when writing ceases to be enjoyable? Over at Beyond the Margins, Dell Smith discusses how the joy of writing must eventually yield to the joy of a finished draft because while writing first drafts might be pleasurable, the work leading to a final draft rarely is:
The only way to finish something is to revise it. Revising for me was anathema. As joyous and euphoric as I found writing the first draft, revising dropped me to a new level of drudgery. Revising my writing was impossible for me to do well for an extended time. I had no patience for it and I usually gave up and simply moved on to the next first draft.
