Although we are close personal friends, this message from Garrison Keillor didn't come directly to me. Actually, we're not close. Or friends. But I did hear him on the radio a lot so I kind of feel I know him.
The following text is actually from a column in a great publication called Funny Times, which is a monthly collection of cartoons and columns. Dave Barry is another writer they regularly feature. You should check out www.funnytimes.com and consider subscribing--it's only $23 for 12 issues. (End of unpaid commercial.)
Anyway, here's part of what Garrison Keillor writes:
"I have had it with writers who talk about how painful and harrowing and exhausting and ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE it it for them to put words on paper and how they pace a hole in the carpet, anguish writ large on their marshmallow faces, and feel lucky to have written an entire sentence or two by the end of the day...To which I say: Get a job. Try teaching eighth-grade English, five classes a day, 35 kids in a class, from September to June, and then tell us about suffering.
"The biggest whiners are the writers who get prizes and fellowships for writing stuff that's painful to read, and so they accumulate long resumes and few readers and wind up teaching in universities where they inflict their gloomy pretensions on the young. Writers who write for a living don't complain about the difficulty of it."
Amen, Gar. I mean, Mr. Keillor.