Between a Rock and a Hard Place

This week in class we have been talking a lot about the "hardness" of writing creative nonfiction. I thought a lot about what Dustin said when he questioned why creative nonfiction had to be "hard".  Then I started considering all of the essays we have read about writing. Writing is something that will not always come easily. In other words, good essays will not just flow from our brains to our hands to the keyboard. Good creative nonfiction is hard. Jessica brought up the question: What if we don't necessarily have anything bad or hard that has happened in our lives, are we just screwed when it comes to writing? I think the hard part of writing is probably not the topic choice but bringing out what you want to say from the topic. It's that one line that is hard hitting. It's hard to explain what makes good writing but it's easy to identify it. This is one of the unique characteristics, the tough truths of this type of writing.