By Will Eichler
There is something very satisfying about manual work. Shutting your brain off, maybe put on some music, and just go until there’s nothing left for you to do. Revel in the sore muscles and cracking joints after a hard day’s work. It's easy to romanticize difficult work when I spend so much of my day sitting with a laptop and trying to think of something to write. Thinking about my day job and happily thinking of carrying 30 pound boxes of seafood or 40 pound boxes of french fries. At least when I’m doing that I know exactly what to do next; grab a new box, put it in its place, and repeat until there’s nothing left. When I’m writing, each new word can either feel like a struggle or a discovery. And even the most inspired moments can start to feel sour once I go back to look at them. So, there are days where I wonder if I should just set down my pen (or shut my laptop, more accurately) and embrace a life of manual labor. Of course, I also end up romanticizing my writing when I’m at work and hauling around heavy boxes and pointlessly trying to stay warm in a freezer. I spend my time at that job trying to break stories, work out plot points, or just think about how nice it would be if I was writing. This is all to say that writing is not always the easiest thing in the world, which is probably quite obvious to most people, but it was on my mind regardless. Ruminating on the craft itself and trying to decipher why it appeals to me in spite of its challenges is one of the main reasons I like writing this blog. I haven’t really found a good answer though, I suppose that I may just enjoy the satisfaction of a hard day’s work, regardless of what type of work it is.